Cambodia’s Political Development in 2050: A Youth’s Perspective

Vann Bunna

Today is November 9, 2050. Cambodian people are proudly and cheerfully celebrating the 97^th anniversary of their country’s Independence Day. Impressively, Cambodia is now a knowledge-based economy and a developed country with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of around US$ 12,600, thanks to strong economic growth and well-functioning democracy for the last few decades.

I am now 56 years old. I am a very proud Cambodian to have witnessed how my country has progressively transformed itself from a lower-middle-income nation in the 2020s to a high-income country in 2050. I have countless great-hearted memories to talk about the Kingdom’s progress; however, given my background in political science, I am strongly motivated to share my perspectives on how impressive Cambodia’s political development in 2050 is.

Myanmar Coup: What It Means for ASEAN

Bunna Vann  & Visal Chourn

On February 1, the Myanmar military seized power from a democratically elected civilian government in what has been confirmed as a coup. It detained the de facto country leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the ruling National League of Democracy party (NLD) and announced a one-year state of emergency. This move has turned Myanmar once again into a military junta regime after nine years of democratic transition, putting the future of the country in uncertainty.

This shock move came hours before convening the first session of Myanmar’s newly elected parliament since the November 2020 election—in which State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party got a landslide victory over the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. However, the military did not accept the election result and used a voter fraud allegation, which Myanmar’s union election commission rejected, to justify its action with the intention of conducting a fresh “free and fair” election. Reflecting on this recent development, what could the political crisis in Myanmar mean for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and how can ASEAN navigate it?