Thursday, 18 March 2010 10:33 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) - A new study dealing with the announced 2010 election laws appeals to domestic and international voices often critical of Burma’s ruling military to step back and conduct a realistic assessment of the political landscape in Burma and the corresponding significance associated with the election laws.
Derek Tonkin, Chairman of Network Myanmar and a former British ambassador to Thailand, argues in the organization’s March 17th edition of Burmese Perspectives that Burma’s election laws and indeed the question of elections themselves has become muddled with an overemphasis on Burma’s primary opposition party and a failure to deal with ground realties.
“The NLD has set out a counsel of perfection in the Shwegondaing Declaration of 29 April 2009 which it would be hard to fault, but the regime has given no sign that they are interested in any of its proposals,” finds the report.
The Shwegondaing Declaration rehashes the longstanding demands of the National League for Democracy, namely the release of political prisoners, a review of the 2008 constitution, dialogue with the pro-democracy opposition and acceptance of the 1990 election results.
As for the international community, world leaders often critical of the junta, according to Tonkin, are cautioned “not to forget that hundreds of democratically inspired candidates will be taking part in the elections, despite all the flaws in the Constitution, and that their interests should not be ignored simply because of the West's obsession with the NLD and her charismatic leader.”
Stating that the recently released set of election laws should largely have come as no surprise regarding content, Tonkin contends the only substantive item to thus far be revealed is the condition that no prisoner can serve as founder or member of a political party.
However, while many observers have latched onto the above precondition as necessarily outlawing any prospective candidacy of present National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Tonkin is willing to give Burmese authorities and institutions the final say. As such, Tonkin argues only Burma’s courts and electoral commission (whose members are hand-picked by the military junta) can make a final ruling on whether the opposition leader’s current state of detention in her lakeside villa qualifies as prison.
The former ambassador also raises issues with several assumptions commonly voiced in the international media, challenging opinions that the election laws preclude candidacy for both current and former detainees, that prohibiting monks the right to vote is a statute against both domestic and international norms, and reminding his readership that the ill-fated 1990 elections were contingent upon the drafting of a constitution.
Speaking of the 1990 elections, won by the National League for Democracy with approximately 60 percent of the vote, Tonkin is blunt in assessing that honoring the results of the election twenty years previously today stands virtually no chance.
Nonetheless, Tonkin does believe the election commission would reinstate the National League for Democracy if the party so chooses to apply, even though it would imply de facto recognition of the 2008 constitution, which the party has to date maintained holds no legal authority.
With the crisis presently facing Burma’s primary opposition party, the report asks whether the party may split, with Aung San Suu Kyi possibly emerging above formal politics but still very much able to influence the political direction of the country.
As Burma approaches relatively new political waters, Tonkin asks searching questions of those who have stood steadfastly by the side of the Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy during the better party of two decades.
“What has she [Aung San Suu Kyi] achieved for the Burmese people after 22 years of struggle,” postulates the report, “the answer is that she has given them a lot of hope for the future which has never been fulfilled.”
The full contents of the report can be accessed here: http://www.networkmyanmar.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=77.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Subscribe to email feed
