🇹🇭 Prayuth, ministers survive censure

Asean prepares for pre-summit visit to Myanmar

September 07, 2021

Hello friends!

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Today I’ve got an update on the political situation in Bangkok over the weekend. It seems like a bit of a bust, but it’s another step towards something, whatever that ends up being. And across in Myanmar, there’s been some developments and I’ve also included some further reads which gave me a broader understanding of where we’re at eight months into the coup.

Stay safe out there,Erin Cook

🇹🇭 Prayuth, protestors still standing

Third time, not quite the charm for opposition MPs in Thailand who failed to unseat Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha in a censure vote Saturday. 

The Prime Minister and five top cabinet ministers faced parliament on Saturday following weeks of increasingly heated debate on the government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. While all six survived the challenge, Prayuth wore the most damage with 208 votes of no confidence. The Bangkok Post has a lovely graphic here laying out who got what in the tally.

It’s the worst result yet for the PM, who faced previous censure motions in February of last year and again at the start of this year, although it managed to fend off rumours of deepening factionalism in the government and it wasn’t even close really when you think about it. Still!

Much of the analysis and reporting I’ve been interested in is about the opposition. The opposition as a broad beast is, of course, hamstrung by the legal reforms over the years which favour the long rule of the military-aligned parties, but on a more micro level, the last few weeks has been revealing.

In this fascinating report, Thai Enquirer lays out how Move Forward and Pheu Thai, two of the dominant opposition parties, will reprimand cadres who voted with the government in the censure motion. “There will be repercussions against MPs who voted against party lines,” Pheu Thai deputy leader Pichai Naripthanphan told Thai Enquirer. A Move Forward spokesman issued an explicit threat to MPs who voted against the party bloc — get in line, or get out.

The outcome won’t be slowing down the protest movement. Demonstrations increasingly fixated on the ouster of Prayuth in the days leading up to the censure vote, with daily protests in the capital. This one from New York Times has a fairly comprehensive look at how the movement arrived at this point with some fantastic snaps. 

I’m intrigued to see what happens next. This protest movement isn’t running out of steam anytime soon although a fresh round of legal trouble is in the wings for movement leaders.

🇲🇲 A Myanmar update

  • As I hit ‘send in 10 minutes’ I poked around a bit, content with my work, and started to see a huge development from the National Unity Government. I’ll let this speak for itself for now, but we’ll definitely be back with more reporting and analysis soon:

  • It’s time for the United Nations to decide whether it recognises the Tatmadaw or the National Unity Government, made of lawmakers who largely had been voted into government in last year’s election before being ousted (and worse) in February. This is a big question with big implications, so let’s defer to Frontier Myanmar. And while you’re there get yourself a membership. 

  • The National Unity Government is tapping supporters and wealthy Burmese abroad to fund the parallel government’s budget, Asia Nikkei reports. The first budget is expected to hit $700 million and be laid out in the coming weeks. Truly, click through and read this whole story it’s very interesting.

  • The Asean envoy to Myanmar is planning a visit ahead of the summit in October, with a visit to jailed Aung San Suu Kyi high on the priority lists. A request has been put into the Tatmadaw leadership, says envoy Erywan Yusof, but as it wasn’t laid out in the five-point consensus drafted in Jakarta in April it may not be on the cards.

  • Ashin Wirathu, a monk whose name always follows ‘firebrand’, has been released. In all of the mess of the last few months, I forgot that he’d returned to Myanmar, self-exiled while facing charges relating to sedition over comments to oust Aung Sann Suu Kyi. He returned in the heady days of February but has been quite quiet since then. Now, he has been sprung and all charges dropped by the junta. DW has a fantastic explainer here.

Further reading

On Aug. 1, exactly six months after the coup, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing appointed himself chief minister in a new interim government. This time, he fantasized about producing anti-coronavirus medicines from herbal plants grown in Myanmar. There might be traditional medicine practitioners with profound knowledge of the needed herbs in Karen, Kachin and Shan states, he said.

Beyond censorship, the generals’ approach to running the country stifled the development of a robust music scene. A stagnated education system meant most musicians learned through informal means, Shwe Gyaw Gyaw, who has been writing and producing music since the 1980s, tells Rolling Stone. “Myanmar has many talented musicians who for decades couldn’t learn music systematically,” he says. Meanwhile, weak rule of law left copyright infringement commonplace, making it difficult for even the most talented musicians to earn a living through music production, he says. Technology also lagged: Myint Zaw, one of the first audio engineers and producers to mix music electronically, was only able to access computer engineering systems for audio recording beginning around 1998.

“We are very disappointed at the repeated delays in Danny’s case,” Frontier’s Editor-in-Chief Thomas Kean told The Associated Press. “Because of these delays he has now been in prison for more than 100 days and also had very little contact with his family or his lawyer. We know he has done nothing wrong and we are hopeful the case will soon be withdrawn so he can finally go home to his family.”

This split in the monastic community, Buddhist clerics say, is partly due to the military’s assiduous courting of influential monks, luring them with donations and promises that soldiers, more than civilian leaders, are the true defenders of the faith. Harder-edged tactics have also been used to discourage monks from protesting, as armed security forces occupy monasteries — potential centers for resistance — and order clerics to return home, citing the coronavirus pandemic.

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