Myanmar's 2020 elections: Path to stability or flashpoint for conflict?

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy seem set to win a second five-year term in general elections on 8 November. But a major democratic test will be whether the poll can convince the country’s minorities that they are getting fair representation, or whether some will see no alternative to the well-trodden path of insurgency.

Beyond the faltering peace process, our panel discussion on Myanmar's second elections since emerging from military rule in 2011 will address the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, the growing economic crisis and the abiding need for constitutional reform.

Our four discussants:

Richard Horsey: Crisis Group’s Myanmar Senior Adviser and former Myanmar representative of the International Labour Organization.

Ei Ei Toe Lwin: Chief Election Correspondent of Frontier Myanmar and formerly a journalist with the Myanmar Times, reporting on Myanmar political affairs for the past decade.

Jonas Gahr Støre: Leader of the main opposition Labour Party, former foreign minister of Norway and a Crisis Group Trustee.

Gwen Robinson (moderator): Editor-at-Large of Nikkei Asia and senior fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

Read Crisis Group briefing Majority Rules in Myanmar’s Second Democratic Election here.