Disappointment as military shoots down amendments
It was the outcome everyone saw coming, but civilian MPs professed great disappointment yesterday as several key planks of a two-year constitutional amendment process were shot down by military representatives, who refused to listen to pleas to give up their veto powers.
MPs also took aim at the military’s intransigence, warning that its rejection of the proposed changes would lead to increased political tension around the election and peace process.
“It was a very disappointing result. I feel so sad, especially on the outcome of section 436,” U Banyar Aung Moe from the All Mon Region Democracy Party said after the vote.
“The proposal to reduce [the threshold for approving constitutional amendments] to 70 percent would not have affected [the military’s] power. Now we can see that they don’t want to lose any part of their power. This is not good for the sake of the country,”
Five of six changes were rejected in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw yesterday, the first time that amendments to the 2008 constitution have been put to a vote.
The key amendments were to section 436(a) and (b), which enshrine the military’s veto over constitutional change by setting the threshold for approving constitutional amendments at 75pc of all MPs. In some cases, a referendum is also required.
A bill submitted to parliament on June 10 had proposed reducing this to 70pc, which would remove the military’s automatic veto but still make amendments difficult to pass.
Also rejected were proposals to relax the eligibility criteria for the three presidential nominees – although not enough to make opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi eligible for the top job – and to require these nominees to be selected from among elected MPs.
Only the change to section 59(d) – to replace the word “military” with “defence” in a clause requiring presidential nominees to be “well acquainted with the affairs of the Union such as political, administrative, economic and military” – was approved. It still requires approval at a national referendum.
The result has deep implications for a second amendment bill that contains a much larger number of proposed changes. MPs will begin debating the bill on June 30, knowing that the amendments can only pass with the support of the military bloc.
Prior to the vote there had been significant debate over which voting system would be selected for use by Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Speaker Thura U Shwe Mann.
Rather than the electronic or stand-up systems, he announced that MPs would have to write their choices on a piece of paper and place it in a box at the front of the chamber – a method that has not been used since February 2011, when parliamentarians elected U Thein Sein president.
The Speaker warned MPs there were only two types of vote – yes or no. Anyone who abstained would be counted as a no vote. The 583 MPs – 50 were absent on the day – had to mark their vote for the six proposed amendments on the one piece of paper.
There was confusion as to whether the Speaker had the right to vote, but Thura U Shwe Mann insisted he did and he voted together with the other MPs.
After taking almost two hours to count the votes, the Speaker announced the results to a hushed chamber.
There was silence, but the result had been expected. The military representatives had made clear during debate over the previous two days that they opposed changes to sections 436, 59(f) and 60(c).
Civilian MPs, meanwhile, spoke with surprising unanimity, although National League for Democracy and ethnic minority representatives pushed for the threshold to be lowered further than 70pc, to two-thirds of all MPs.
Some civilian MPs opposed the changes to section 59(f), while the NLD called for the annulment of the section in its entirely – a move that would make Daw Aung San Suu Kyi eligible for the presidency.
Nearly all elected MPs backed the proposed changes to 60(c), which would have required the president and vice presidents to be selected from among elected MPs.
Amyotha Hluttaw representative U Aye Maung said the military had misread the political mood by vetoing the changes.
He said the result showed that the military does not want to build a genuine federal union. “They just want to build a fake federal union system,” he said.
The Rakhine National Party chief was one of six participants in a high-level political dialogue initiated by parliament in an attempt to win military and government support for constitutional reform.
However, the government participated only very reluctantly, allowing a single meeting to take place on April 10 – after a six-month wait – and refusing to schedule a second discussion.
The failure of the talks prompted Thura U Shwe Mann’s USDP to submit the amendment bill earlier this month.
“I feel really sorry about this result. We tried to escape political crisis through the six-ways talks but they neglected it,’’ U Aye Maung said.
He added that the holding of free and fair elections would be the best way to overcome the rising political tension.
“The good point from seeing this result is that the people can clearly know who stands on their side and which party they should vote for in the upcoming election. It mainly depends on the people – they need to decide the future of our country – but it must be a free and fair election too,” he said.
U Win Than from the USDP said it was not worth holding a nationwide referendum to approve the minor change to section 59(d). “It would be a waste of money,” he said, adding, “We tried as much as we could but we still got a bad result.”
The constitutional amendment process will resume on June 30, when debate will start on proposed changes to around 30 other sections that require only the approval of parliament. The Speaker said yesterday that 63 MPs had registered to take part in the debate.
Full voting results
Proposed changes required the support of 75 percent of all 633 MPs, or at least 475 votes in favour. Only 583 MPs were present for the vote.
APPROVED
Section 59(d) – 556 votes, 87.8%
REJECTED
Section 59(f) – 371 votes, 58.6%
Section 60(c) – 386 votes, 61%
Section 418(b) – 386 votes, 61%
Section 436(a) – 388 votes, 61.3%
Section 436(b) – 388 votes, 61.3%
(Quote from Myanmar times online website on 26 June 2015)