Coronavirus: Aung San Suu Kyi Launches Facebook Mask Contest

Text by: Sarah Bakaloglou

In Burma, leader Aung San Suu Kyi reactivated a personal Facebook account. The opportunity for the Nobel Peace Prize launcher to relaunch, during this Covid-19 period, its campaign for the general elections scheduled for the fall of 2020.

Publicity

From our correspondent in Rangoon,

The messages posted on the Burmese leader's personal page relate only to the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the last publications for example of Aung San Suu Kyi, it is that where the leader launches a contest of photos of homemade cotton masks, with prizes for the photos which will receive the most mention I like by the others users. Aung San Suu Kyi must publish a photo of her own mask in the coming days.

So almost every day, there is a new publication on his personal account. It can be simply a message, which is found the next day on the front page of the official journal. It is often also the retransmission of a live video where she chats with Burmese involved in the fight against the Covid-19, patients, caregivers, local government officials.

2020 elections uncertain for Aung San Suu Kyi

The leader is very popular in Burma, and her publications are widely followed. The fact that she speaks in person undoubtedly makes it possible to mobilize the Burmese population against the Covid-19. But as we said, the general elections are coming soon. If the leader's party had a tidal wave in 2015, it looks more uncertain in 2020. So, before the epidemic broke out in Burma, at the end of March, Aung San Suu Kyi multiplied the trips, even if it was not officially a political campaign.

But today, meeting the crowds is impossible because of the coronavirus. According to a Burmese journalist interviewed by RFI, it is therefore a political strategy to maintain a link - direct - with the population in view of the elections, without going through an intermediary, like the official journal for example. And then, by embodying Burma's fight against the Covid-19, Aung San Suu Kyi occupies space in the army which, for its part, also communicated several times to highlight the assistance provided by the military for fight the epidemic.

Facebook has become a source of information

In any case, the Facebook social network remains a very popular tool for communication, especially in the context of Covid-19. Even the Burmese Ministry of Health is announcing new cases of coronavirus on Facebook. It is estimated that 22 million people use the social network in Burma, out of a population of 24 million. It is therefore a communication platform, but also a source of information for many Burmese.

This also poses the risk of fake news and its consequences: Facebook was, for example, accused of having propagated hatred against the Muslim minority of the Rohingya , a minority victim of ethnic cleansing in 2017 which pushed more than 700,000 people to flee to Bangladesh. And this risk of fake news, hate speech and false rumors on social networks also worries in the run-up to the 2020 elections.

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