The forth coming election.
labour
1. 25% of seats in both the upper and lower houses of the parliament
are designated for tatmadaw member appointed by the supreme commander.
2. The tatmadaw bear responsibility for "safeguarding the State
Constitution." That principle could be invoked at any time to prevent
amendments that the military sees as inimical to its interests. The Chief of
Staff and the army will be above the state judiciary system, and can
manipulate it as they choose; imposing martial law and
ousting the civilian administration if it is deemed to pose a threat to
national security. The military is vested with veto power to declare a state
of emergency virtually anytime it wants without parliamentary oversight and
dissolve the parliament.
3. The principles also guarantee the military a place in the executive
branch as the President will be elected only after the military's approval.
The President is to be invested with enormous power and will work
independently from the legislature and be granted immunity from prosecution.
4. The supreme commander will be the defence minister and he will
report directly to the president. Under the draft constitution, "The
tatmadaw has the right to independently administer all affairs concerning
the armed forces." The commander in chief is also given full control over
military justice.
5. Critical postings such as the defence minister, home minister and
Border Area Affairs shall be appointed from within the military regime.
6. The military regime shall be a government within a government and
have a separate budget controlled by the supreme commander.
7. The constitution can only be changed by not less than 75% of the
parliamentarian votes. Thus once accepted the constitution it is impossible
to change.
8. Three vice president positions would be filled by a presidential
electoral college comprised of members selected by the People's Parliament;
the electoral College would then elect a president from among the three vice
presidents who will be well acquainted with military affairs.
9. The junta, in Chapter 14 of its draft constitution, provides
immunity to all military officials from being tried and prosecuted, which
groups including the Burma Lawyers Council, Global Justice Centre and Burma
Justice Committee said is totally against international law. Article 445 of
the junta's draft constitution states that, "No legal action shall be taken
against those (either individuals or groups who are members of SLORC and
SPDC) who officially carried out their duties according to their
responsibilities."
The above 9 points are hardly democratic !. One wonders if the generals
understand what democracy means?. The say they are trying to democratize the
nation but all what they are doing is pure dictatorship, looking after
themselves to avoid reprisals for their ill deeds. The generals are
manipulating the judiciary and using the State media as their mouth piece
to further deceive and mislead the people. "The Burmese generals are showing
their true colours by continuing to arrest anyone opposed to their sham
referendum, and denying the population the right to a public discussion of
the merits of the draft constitution," said Brad Adams, Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. "International acceptance of this process will be a big
step backward."
The referendum is illegal in the eyes of the law; even in the eyes of the
junta's law. The people were not allowed to vote freely in accordance with
their own free will. The junta's thugs notoriously rigged the referendum,
forced people, instil fear, threatened people and followed people into the
voting boot and intimidated people to vote yes. Government workers were
forced to vote YES at their work place and those who were unwilling to vote
yes were forced to resign and their names added to the black list for
further harassment to follow. Thus the generals broke their own law after
promising the people free and fair referendum. If the referendum is illegal
then how can the election be creditable and legal? It is therefore a
disgraceful total sham. These uneducated, crooked, corrupted, trigger happy,
power hungry, self promoted so called generals are obviously not worthy of
being in government. The world community strongly objects to the way people
are treated in Burma. It is copiously clear that the generals are power
hungry and creating a climate to continue military rule in the guise of such
a sham election to legitimise their rule which was condemned by the people.
For the election to be credible the constitution must be reviewed and
revised; there has to be a dialogue between all parties in Burma and the
election has to be inclusive, free and fair. All political prisoners have to
be released and allowed to campaign freely with out harassment and
intimidation from the junta thugs.
This has been made abundantly clear to the junta by the UN, NATO, Western
Governments, European union, ASEAN and the World Community including
Asian-pacific nations.