Stalling constitutional amendment to uphold “disciplined democracy”?
On the heels of
military law makers rejection of
Articles 59(f) and Article 436, including many other provisions in the
2008, military-drafted Constitution, Lower House Speaker Shwe Mann told a press
conference on 10 November that any changes or amendment of it will have to wait
until after next year’s general elections.
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Although this is hardly
a surprise, the urgency in letting the cat out of the bag makes many wonder, if
the USDP-Military regime from the outset has no intention, whatsoever, to share
political decision-making power with anyone, in anyway.
It seems the bad note
given by President Obama on back-sliding or stalled reform process, which have
particularly upset the military leadership, coupled with ending of Burma's
ASEAN Presidency taken over by Malaysia, it is now free from responsibilities
and stately manners, and could show its real nature and motive, on how it would
like to dominate and run the country.
And to drive home the
message, military top brass have been recently maneuvring to expand the role of
National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), a military-dominated 11-member
body, which takes the leading role in a State of Emergency, wherein it
exercises the powers of the legislature, executive, and judiciary before the
Parliaments are again formed. Accordingly, the military representatives, during
the recent parliamentary debate put forward the argument that NDSC should be
given the right to dissolve the Parliament, if a third of the seats become
vacant. With twenty five percent unelected military representatives sitting in
the Parliament and the USDP members sure to at least secure some seats, even if
it would not be able to secure a stark majority, in the forth-coming 2015
election, like it is now enjoying, the USDP and military factions would be able
to create a situation of dissolving the Parliament, whenever they choose,
leading to a State of Emergency rule, according to the constitution.
It is a clear
indication and intention to create a built-in safety device for the
military-dominated government to be able to hold on to power, if things turn
out to its disadvantage after the 2015 election.
According to The
Irrawaddy report of 19 November, Saw Than Myint, deputy chairman of the Federal
Union Party, said : “It’s like saying clearly that there is no situation in
which the 2008 Constitution will be amended.”
The same report writes
that Mya Aye of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, said: “If a few
amendments are not made to this Constitution, there will be more doubts about
how it will be possible to build a democratic federal union, which the
non-Burman ethnic groups are expecting. This is the immediate impact.”
Nai Han Tha,
Vice-President of the UNFC, said in an interview with The Irrawaddy that it
could be the government-backed USDP would like to maintain its victory in 2015
election and also to ward off amendment within the armed forces, which the
Burma Army has been reluctant to comply. He said the 2008 Constitution is not a real federal
union, but just a charter to cloak the real nature of military dictatorship,
which the people neither like or support. But he doesn't think that it would
have an impact on the ceasefire talks for they haven't touched on the subject
or reached the political dialogue phase as yet.
The Irrawaddy report of
18 November also writes, Khu Oo Reh, General Secretary of the United
Nationalities Federal Council, told The Irrawaddy that delaying constitutional
amendments until 2016 will undermine the integrity of the next elections.
“If none of articles of
the 2008 Constitution can be amended and the 2015 election is held based on the
current Constitution, it will be very hard to expect that the elections will be
a free and fair one,” he said.
Indications are that
the democratization and peace process have completely stalled, with the
military determined to impose its “disciplined democracy” or military-dominated
regime, at the expense of the opposition political parties and the non-Burman
ethnic nationalities.
Meanwhile, as if to
show and buttress the Burmese military intention of playing hard ball against
the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the government military base at Hkarabum
directed artillery shelling at a military cadet training school, in Laiza,
killing 22 trainees and wounding 14, according to Eleven Media Group, on 20
November.
According to the
report, Lamai Goon Ja of Peace Creation
Group (PCG) said: “ The Burmese troops manning the artillery from the mountain
top could see the cadet school clearly and when they saw the cadets were
gathering, they fired the big guns.”
KIA spokesman, La Nan
also said that the fighting is still ongoing in some areas and described the
Laiza encounter as an “ambush”, according to The Irrawaddy report.
Given such
circumstances, the issues of constitutional amendments will be put on ice at
least for some time, leaving the military in control of running the country and
the signing of Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) won't materialize anytime
soon either, if the government and the military refuse to address the
aspirations of ethnic equality in the form of a federal union and insist only
upon “negotiated surrender”.
Tags: Opinion
