Hope and fear in Kachin State as vote draws near

4 November 2015

Nikkei Asian Review - Four years after being driven away by the military, Dagaw Hpung is finally letting himself dream of going home. On Nov. 8, when the country heads to the polls for a long-awaited election, he will be casting his vote for a new government -- one he hopes will help end the conflict which has raged between the military and the Kachin Independence Army since 2011.

In many areas, the election looms as a two-horse race between the military-backed ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party and Suu Kyi's NLD. But the political terrain in Kachin and other ethnic minority states is fractured and complex, highlighting the depth of the ethnic conflicts which have wracked Myanmar since its independence from Britain in 1948.

"Inequitable distribution of political and economic rights has long driven mistrust and conflict in Myanmar," the Transnational Institute, an Amsterdam-based research and advocacy group, wrote in a September briefing on ethnic politics.

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Ethnic Conflict in Myanmar