What is at stake is not the provincial council elections, but democracy.

[The president] has acted irresponsibly by concentrating on beating back political demonstrations, while leaving dangerously weak areas in key sectors like the airport.

He believed in peace negotiations to solve the ethnic problem.

Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections.

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

Democracy is not a quick fix, and you need to have civil society in place for [elections] to work. Unfortunately, it didn't. It backfired.