Lunch Talk: Observing the 2022 Philippine Elections: Democratic Rollback in Southeast Asia?

Hybrid Lunch Talk with NIAS Director Duncan McCargo

The 9 May 2022 Philippine elections saw Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator, elected to the country’s presidency. NIAS Director Duncan McCargo spent three weeks in the country as an official election observer, mainly in the Marcos heartland Ilocos region. In this talk, he discusses the implications of the Philippine results, and reflects on his experiences of election observing.

Duncan McCargo is Director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. He specializes on the comparative politics of Southeast Asia, especially Thailand. Duncan first visited the Philippines in 1987 and was most recently an official observer in Northern Luzon for the 2022 elections, under the auspices of the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL).