Gaps in Myanmar's democratic
timetable By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - Myanmar's top general Than Shwe
has finally revealed his closely guarded plans for
the country's political future: institutionalize
military rule through a sham constitution and
manipulated democratic elections.
The
strategy was presented publicly over the weekend
when Myanmar's military rulers announced plans to
hold democratic elections in 2010 after holding a
national referendum on a new constitution this
May. The referendum represents the fourth step in
the ruling junta's seven-step "roadmap to
democracy", which was first broached in 2003.
"We have achieved success in economic,
social and other
sectors and in restoring
peace and stability," a top leader in the junta,
Secretary 1 Lieutenant-General Tin Aung Myint Oo,
announced on the state-run radio and television.
"So it is now suitable to change the military
administration to a democratic, civil
administrative system, as good fundamentals have
been established," he said.
Than Shwe
obviously feels the time is now right to move
towards a form of civilian rule in order to
appease international pressure and prevent further
unrest within the country. Previously the military
regime used its so-called "roadmap to democracy"
as a delaying tactic when they came under
international pressure to introduce political
reforms.
"It seems that General Than Shwe
has changed his mind and is no longer using the
seven-point road map to buy time, but instead it
is now central to his efforts to overcome both
internal and international pressures," according
to the Chiang Mai-based academic Win Min.
"Internally the generals may be worried
about further mass unrest, and are using the
promise of elections to cool people down and
encourage them not to do demonstrate, but to wait
and see," he said. "The junta promised elections
after crackdown on the 8-8-88 mass movement for
the same reason."
Than Shwe, keen to
maintain his influence despite his failing health,
has strategically killed several birds with one
stone.
Within the military, he has clearly
indicated to his number two, General Maung Aye,
that he cannot hope to replace him as the
country's absolute ruler. He has also effectively
killed the United Nation's mediation role - as
there is nothing left for the envoy Ibrahim
Gambari to discuss. And his message to the
detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is
that there are no viable options for her but to
endorse the roadmap.
The move will please
Myanmar's Asian allies - especially China, India
and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) - by coming up with a hard and fast
timetable for political change. The junta first
broached its "roadmap to democracy" over four
years ago, but this weekend's announcement
represents the first time that a timetable has
been set.
"Than Shwe has been constantly
considering all his options and examining all the
possible scenarios in order to have a strategic
plan which will ensure he retains power and
protects his family's interests in the long-run,"
said a senior source in the new capital Naypitdaw
who is close to the military leader. "For sometime
the roadmap was a back-up strategy, but after the
crackdown on the protests last year, it became the
main option to keep political control."
The planned constitution, which critics
have branded as a sham and unrepresentative of the
country's pro-democracy constituency, is expected
to be revealed in the next few weeks. More than a
thousand military appointed delegates spent over
14 years in a National Convention process drawing
up guidelines for the constitution.
Aung
San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD)
party, which resoundingly won 1990 democratic
elections which the junta annulled, was notably
excluded from the constitution drafting process.
"Without the participation of Aung Sann Suu Kyi,
the NLD and the ethnic groups, the constitution is
not credible and people will not accept it," said
Zin Linn, a spokesman for Myanmar's
government-in-exile made up of MPs elected in the
1990 elections.
Towards military
democracy So far little is known about the
actual contents of the new constitution - except
that it will essentially preserve military rule
under the guise of a civilian government. Under
the guidelines for the new charter drawn up by the
National Convention, a quarter of the seats in the
proposed parliament will be reserved for military
appointees.
The president will come from
the military, while key ministries, including
defense, will be directly controlled by the
military. The army would be allowed to set its own
budget, without reference to the civilian
government, and the army commanders would retain
the right to declare a state of emergency and
seize political power at any time for ill-defined
reasons of national security.
"The junta's
plans are for a nominal democracy, or as the
military prefer to call it, 'disciplined
democracy'," said the independent Burmese analyst
Aung Naing Oo.
Moreover, few, if any,
Western diplomats or political analysts believe
that the referendum on the new constitution will
be a free and fair process.
"Unless the
regime revokes the regulation 5/96 [which
prohibits criticism of the National Convention or
the constitution with a maximum sentence of life
in prison if convicted], there can be no free
debate about the constitution," an opposition
leader inside Myanmar told Asia Times Online on
condition of anonymity.
Rather than a
secret ballot, analysts believe that the new
constitution's ratification is likely to be
accomplished through a series of mass meetings
across the country overseen and controlled by the
pro-military mass organization the Union
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA),
which is run by Than Shwe's closest allies.
Ever since the National Convention first
started discussing the guidelines for the new
constitution in 1993, several senior government
officials have hinted that USDA rallies would form
the basis of the referendum process. In 1994,
millions of Burmese citizens reportedly attended
USDA-led mass rallies across the country to
publicly support the work of the National
Convention. Most of those in attendance, however,
were coerced or bribed by the regime, according to
many diplomats based in Yangon at the time.
"It's almost certain to be either a
process of affirmation through mass meetings or a
re-run of the 1974 constitutional referendum, when
voters had a choice of putting their ballots
either into a black box for 'no' and a white box
for 'yes' under the gaze of the soldiers guarding
the polling stations," says Australian
constitutional lawyer Janelle Saffin.
What
is even more certain is that international
election monitors will not be allowed to
scrutinize the referendum or the elections.
Myanmar's charismatic opposition leader Suu Kyi -
who has spent more than 12 of the past 18 years in
detention - will constitutionally not be allowed
to stand for election because she was married to
the British academic Michael Aris and thereby
considered a foreigner.
Although Than Shwe
has previously told UN envoy Gambari that the NLD
would be allowed to stand in the general
elections, many analysts believe all the existing
political parties, including the NLD, will be
either barred or severely hobbled through official
harassment. "The generals learned their lesson
from the last elections in 1990; they will not
repeat the same mistake twice and this time they
have two years after the referendum to make sure
the results meet their plans," Zin Linn said.
The junta's announcement notably comes at
a time that the military regime is under growing
international pressure to introduce political
reform and involve Suu Kyi and the NLD in the
process. The European Union and the United States
have stepped up trade and investment sanctions
against the junta after its brutal crackdown on
mass anti-government demonstrations across the
country last August and September.
Both
the EU and the US have threatened even stiffer
sanctions if there is no demonstrably progress
towards political reform in the next few months.
In the meantime UN special envoy to Myanmar
Gambari has been trying in vain to return to the
country to resume his mediation efforts between
the opposition leader and the junta.
"The
announcement may also mean the end of the Gambari
process," said Win Min. "In effect Than Shwe is
saying that there is no role now for the UN - the
constitutional process has been laid out and will
now take its course," he added.
It's still
unclear if the junta's move was goaded on by
China, which since last year has been quietly
urging the regime to make concessions to the
international community.
"Behind the
scenes, China's leaders have pushed the regime to
speed up the national reconciliation process,"
says one Yangon-based Asian diplomat. "China has
been particularly worried that their support for
[Myanmar] might adversely affect the Olympic Games
in Beijing ... if the junta continued to defy
calls for reform," he added.
International
rights groups have called for a boycott of the
Summer Olympics over Beijing's support for
Myanmar's rights abusing regime. Yet while Chinese
pressure may have been instrumental in the junta's
decision to announce its new democratic time
table, Than Shwe would not have moved unless he
felt it was his best option to preserve his and
his family's power and interests into the future.
"Without genuine dialogue between the key
political actors - the military, the opposition
and the ethnic groups - national reconciliation is
an empty shell," said Myanmar analyst Aung Naing
Oo. "The junta's announcement leaves the
opposition groups no room in which to maneuver and
so makes heightened tension inevitable," he said.
Larry Jagan previously covered
Myanmar politics for the British Broadcasting
Corp. He is currently a freelance journalist based
in Bangkok.
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