Bangkok - When the people of Myanmar vote in a referendum on
May 10 on the country's new constitution, they will be getting a
bitter foretaste of the 'discipline-flourishing democracy' the
military has in store for them.
The referendum, Myanmar's third in the past five decades, will
theoretically decide the fate of the country's new charter, a
document that promises to cement the dominant role of the military
in Myanmar politics following the next general election, planned in
2010.
In fact, the outcome of the referendum is a foregone conclusion,
according to veteran Myanmar watchers.
'It's going to be a yes vote,' said Naing Aung Oo, a former
Myanmar student activist who was forced to flee the country in the
aftermath of the 1988 anti-military protests. 'There are two reasons,
one is intimidation and the other reason is the high probability of
rigging the vote,' he explained.
Myanmar's junta, the self-styled State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC), has left little up to free choice in the upcoming
referendum.
The generals no doubt learned their lesson from the 1990 election,
which, contrary to their expectations and planning, the National
League for Democracy (NLD), led by opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, won by a landslide.
Despite their electoral victory, the NLD was blocked from power
on the military's argument that a new constitution was needed before
civilian rule could be risked in Myanmar, a country suffering from a
long history of ethnic-based insurgencies and separatist struggles.
The referendum on the constitution, which took 14 years to draft,
was announced in February, amid intensifying international pressure
on Myanmar's military regime to demonstrate its sincerity in moving
towards some form of democratic system in the aftermath of its latest
crackdown on its own people in September of last year, when the
government brutally suppressed protests led by Buddhist monks.
In the same month, but less publicly, the regime also announced a
new law that punishes anyone caught publicly criticizing the
referendum with a three-year jail term and a fine.
The law has been readily enforced. Between March and April scores
of activists have been detained for holding peaceful protests urging
a 'No' vote on the referendum, including five members of National
League for Democracy (NLD) who participated in a peaceful protest in
Yangon, according Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The New York-based rights group said conditions for a free and
fair referendum on May 10 do not exist because of widespread
repression, media censorship, bans on political gatherings, the lack
of an independent referendum commission and courts to supervise the
vote, and a pervasive climate of fear created by the ruling junta in
the run-up to the election in the country also known as Burma.
But given the content of the constitution being voted on, the
nature of this 'discipline-flourishing' referendum should come as a
surprise to nobody.
Two of the fundamental principles of the military-drafted
constitution are to provide 'a discipline-flourishing genuine
multiparty democracy' and 'for the Tatmadaw (military) to be able to
participate in the national political leadership role.'
How the military will dominate Myanmar's post-election politics is
clearly spelled out.
Under the draft charter, 110 members of 440-seat lower house, or
People's Parliament, and 56 members of the 224-seat upper house, or
National Parliament, would be selected by the military.
Control of this 25 per cent of both houses would effectively bar
amendments to the charter that might threaten the military's
dominance, since for an amendment to pass, it would require more than
75-per-cent support.
The draft constitution also includes restrictions excluding many
opposition politicians from running for office and a clause that
effectively prevents opposition leader Suu Kyi from holding any
elected office because she is the widow of a foreigner.
The new charter also enshrines the right of Myanmar's future
president, a non-elected post that is likely to be claimed by the
commander-in-chief, to seize executive and legislative powers in case
of an emergency.
'A military coup could be implemented in Burma by constitutional
means,' noted Lian Sakhong, general secretary of the Ethnic National
Council, representing the ethnic minority groups in Myanmar opposed
to the military.
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