A Progressive Politician in Burma
My interview with Maw Htun Aung provided a fascinating insight into the many forces now at play leading up to the military coup in Myanmar. For the last decade, Maw Htun Aung has been working tirelessly to provide a better future for his country. Most of these years he was involved in natural resource reform, which he began to see as a critical piece of the puzzle that could ensure greater overall peace and stability, especially on ethnic lands. But over time he began to see that his current role could only go so far, and he decided to run for office, as the excerpt below indicates. Maw Htun Aung embraced a progressive agenda in a region where many do not look outside their immediate group or community. He ended up losing the election but personally encountered voter fraud, and is now supporting the nonviolent protest movement.
“But for me, someone who believes in progressive politics, I do not believe that in politics there should be a strong adherence to age, gender, ethnicity, or religion.”
“For the last five years, until 2020, I was deeply involved in the reform of natural resources, including governance inside the country. So I worked with the government, and I also worked with civil society organizations, mobilizing on the ground to help change the way we manage our natural resources.
And then I started to realize that I am an outsider. I’ve been working with the Parliament and the government, but I'm still an outsider. So there are missing parts of that puzzle that, if I am an insider, I will be able to exert more influence and direct more changes. So that's when I thought of entering politics and holding an office position in the legislative chamber.
Considering and reflecting on my life of the last past five years, when I intensively worked with government and also all stakeholders, there are things that I could do if I become a legislative member, that would be more effectively than as an NGO managers. Also, I was about the right age, because I didn't like the fact that many of the legislative members are at retirement age. I did not want my best years to be to be invested in the private sector and then enter into the public service only when I got retired from the best years of my life.
So, that brought me to enter into politics in my prime time. I decided to run for office with the Shan National League For Democracy (SNLD), which is the Shan ethnic political party, and the second largest political parties after National League for Democracy (NLD) in Myanmar. The reason why I chose the SNLD is that Myanmar is often strongly associated with the politics of identity: who you are as well as which ethnicity and what kind of religions you adhere to. And there is some belief that people will only vote for someone you know, whom they can relate to, in terms of their own identity.
But for me, someone who believes in progressive politics, I do not believe that in politics there should be a strong adherence to reference to identity such as age, gender, ethnicity, or religion. The constituency should vote! Someone who has merit and will serve the purpose of the constituency will win. So that's my belief. When I talked with leaders from the party, they were thinking the same. They were thinking of transforming the party into a more policy-based and policy-oriented political party instead of based on the ethnic identity alone.
So with that, I ran for office in the 2020 election, from Northern Shan, which is also a very diverse area, where you find a lot of ethnics from the Chin, Shan, Ta'aung, and also ethnic Chinese are there. So, yeah, that's how I got into the, the politics and the election in the last year.”