Connecting the Federal Democracy Charter with the “Way of Rakhita”: A Theoretical Analysis of the State of Relations between the ULA and NUG led Movements

Executive Summary

The relations between the ULA and NUG-led movements against the military regime have been an intense question to be explored in the post-coup Myanmar politics in 2021. Even if both movements have applied the violent armed struggle to achieve their objectives, the formal ideology of ULA is nationalism whereas that of the NUG is liberal democracy.

While the NUG has announced the Federal Democracy Charter (FDC) as the policy declaration of their movement especially regarding the question of ethnic states and national minorities, the ULA leadership has deployed the philosophy of the ‘Way of Rakhita’ as their fundamental political doctrine.

It is observed that compared to other ethnic armed organizations like the KNU, KIO and CNF, the ULA has almost no formal platforms that connect its relations with the NUG. Due to this point, it could be regarded that the relations between the NUG and ULA are still highly fragile and uneven from one time to another.

The current state of relations between the NUG and ULA movements stem from not just personal nor organizational spheres but from structural and philosophical roots that the two movements view toward each other or the current politics in the country. While the ULA leadership and its philosophy are more leaning toward political realism, the NUG’s policy and approaches toward the current political struggle are mostly guided by liberal thinking.

Introduction: Background

The ‘Federal Democracy Charter’ (FDC) is a policy document that covers two parts released by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH).The FDC has two segments that were separately released on March 31 and April 21, 2021, respectively. Among the two parts of the Charter, and the first is about the proclamation for the establishment of the ‘Federal Democratic Union’ while the second one corresponds to the practice of interim constitutional arrangement by the interim government and administration during the fight against the military dictatorship, namely the State Administration Council (SAC) constituted by the Myanmar military after the military coup on February 1, 2021, in the country. The charter is aimed at the dissolution of the existing 2008 constitution drafted by the junta military and includes a list of core principles and a road map towards the establishment of a civilian-led Federal Democratic Union and Federal Army.

In Articles (52) and (53) of Chapter (8) in Part-2 of the FDC, the clauses have mentioned the establishment of the administrative, legislative and judiciary mechanisms in line with the principle of self-determination and coordination with the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), especially for the ethnic states in the country. The NUCC was established on March 8, 2021, by the anti-coup forces under the FDC and include the CRPH, NUG, Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), ethnic political parties, civil society organizations and civil-disobedient movement groups. Then, the NUCC founded the National Unity Government (NUG) on April 26, 2021, and the members of the NUG were appointed by the CRPH, the legislative body of the government. Therefore, the NUG as the executive branch of the government is theoretically responsible for the successful implementation of the FDC.

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