The broad strokes of Myanmar’s political scene are well known.
In parliament, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy holds the majority of the seats after dominating elections in November.
But attempts to dig deeper are thwarted by a lack of easily accessibly information.
We know about the NLD, but what of some of the smaller entities that have a small share of seats, such as the Zomi Congress for Democracy or the Lisu National Development Party? Who represents them?
Or how about if you live in one of Yangon’s many townships and want to quickly find out who your MP is and how to contact him or her? And oh yeah, just wondering, who is on the Amyotha Hluttaw [Upper House] Farmer Affairs Committee?
All this and more can be found on a new website launching today: www.openhluttaw.com.
“Hluttaw,” in case you don’t have a passing familiarity with political terms in Myanmar, is the Burmese word for parliament.
“I think it is one [part] of an intrinsic concept,” creator Soe Lin Htoot said in an email. “Enabling people to effectively engage [with] their MPs – to promote democracy, especially in transitions.”
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, Soe Lin Htoot was the social media whiz behind the Twitter account the Results Center, which fed us up to date info from the big vote in November as part of his job with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, or IFES.
Now he’s off on his own with a new venture, a civil society organization he created called Myanma Fifth Estate. He started pitching Open Hluttaw in January and got to work on it in March with the help of other groups in the tech community and a similar initiative in Malaysia called the Sinar Project.
He officially unveiled it today at Yangon tech hub Phandeeyar.
So, like, what does the site do?
Well, you can search for MPs by party, by committee, by township, by division and by Upper (Amyotha) and Lower (Pyithu) houses.
At the moment it’s only a mobile-friendly website but plans for an additional app are being discussed.
“Traffic is pretty good so far,” Soe Lin Htoot said, citing 16,391 page views, 5,405 visitors, and 3,818 Facebook referrals to the website since its soft launch on the Open Hluttaw Facebook page on July 29.
“We will develop and publish apps soon as possible once we hear sufficient requests from the users,” he said.
As for the audience, Soe Lin Htoot said it was specifically aimed at the general public, the “politically conscious,” the media, researchers, lobbyists, MPs themselves and others in government.
Right now the basic search functions are in English and a Myanmar version is coming in a matter of weeks.
