Conference "Thailand, Cambodia, Burma: is democracy eternally gagged?", May 31, 7 p.m.

Wednesday, April 31, 2023 from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Auditorium de l'Inalco, 65 rue des Grands Moulins 75013
and live on Youtube
Entry upon registration.

Since 2014, an authoritarian wave has overwhelmed much of Southeast Asia. Particularly those countries that held out the greatest hopes of liberalization. After years of dictatorship, it's like a democratic parenthesis has closed: military putsches have made a stunning comeback. Starting with Thailand, where political life has been hampered for nine years by a new junta led by former Generalissimo Prayuth Chan-o-cha - before reshaping the Constitution to his advantage in 2017. What can the May 14 general elections fundamentally change? The Prime Minister will be chosen by both the 500 elected deputies of the National Assembly, and the 250 members of the Senate appointed by the King on the recommendation of the army. This system obliges opposition parties to obtain at least 376 deputies, a total deemed very difficult to achieve, if they want to bypass the vote of senators loyal to the outgoing government.

To the west of the country, Burma also has a Constitution that ensures the military has the final say on the country's affairs. This has not prevented a new coup d'état in 2021 after another electoral victory for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. And closed a decade-long "democratic parenthesis". Since then, the country has been plunged into the chaos of civil war and the most brutal repression of dissent. On March 28, the party of the "Lady of Rangoon" was dissolved. After promising a national election last August, the army put forward security and logistical reasons for delaying the deadline until at least the end of 2023.

East of Thailand, Cambodia is experiencing a kind of permanent internal coup d'état, with the opposition periodically stifled. In power for 38 years, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will be able to run, once again, in the July 23 legislative elections without a strong opponent. A Phnom Penh court, not independent of the executive, sentenced Kem Sokha, the main opponent of the authoritarian regime and one of the few not to have gone into exile in recent years, to 27 years in prison. He was arrested in the middle of the night in September 2017, when his political group, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), appeared to be in a position to threaten Hun Sen's all-powerful Cambodian People's Party (CPP) in the 2018 legislative elections. In the aftermath, the government dissolved her party and the CPP won all 125 seats in Parliament.

How to explain the impossible implantation of democracy in the Southeast Asian region? How far will the military go? Is the litany of coups destined to continue?

With:

• Sophie Brondel : coordinator of the Info Birmanie association.
• Arnaud Leveau, member of Asia Centre's advisory board, former deputy director of the Institute for Research on Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC) in Bangkok.
• Juliette Buchez, journalist and correspondent for RFI and TV5 Monde in Phnom Penh.

Moderator:

• Cyrielle Cabot : journalist for Asianyst and France 24.

Co-organizers: Inalco and Asialyst.com, the website for news and analysis across Asia
Contact: contact@asialyst.com