Forecasting the Coming Century for Myanmar—Without a Crystal Ball Forecasting the Coming Century for Myanmar—Without a Crystal Ball NLD supporters celebrate the party's victory after the general election in November 2015. / The Irrawaddy 3.2k By Kyaw Zwa Moe 6 March 2021 On Feb. 1, Myanmar’s military seized power from the elected NLD-led government, plunging the country into a new era. But Myanmar’s people have resolutely rejected the military regime, daily taking to the streets in huge numbers to oppose it, putting their lives on the line as they attempt to take back control of their futures. At a moment in history when everything is at stake for Myanmar, we revisit this commentary from October 2019, in which The Irrawaddy English editor Kyaw Zwa Moe, writing a year before the general election, speculated that Myanmar was approaching a crucial turning point in its long history, and faced a stark choice: to allow history to repeat, and fall back into authoritarianism, or fully embrace a genuinely democratic era. “If we fail again,” he wrote, “Myanmar is unlikely to get another chance to remake itself this century.”