Pattaya Enhances Safety Measures with Realistic Fire Drill on School Buses

[Jonathan Fairfield]

An election is called, but democracy has stalled in Myanmar

OPINION

By Damien Kingsbury

Myanmar will go to an election in November, but the domestic politics at play here suggest the country's process of democratisation is far from complete, writes Damien Kingsbury.

Last week, Myanmar's Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) government announced the country would go to elections on November 8.

This raised the prospect of whether Myanmar's process of reform and liberalisation - what US president Barack Obama had earlier called the country's "real but incomplete" process of democratisation - would continue.

In part, the answer had been given the previous month, when Myanmar's legislature consideration of changing its restrictive constitution was vetoed.

The vote not to change the constitution required 75 per cent of the legislature to vote in its favour. Yet with the armed forces (Tatmadaw) holding 25 per cent of the seats (and having proxy support from some former officers in the USDP) it was easily able to veto five of six proposed constitutional changes. Indeed, this veto power - and the continuing of a quarter of the legislature being unelected - was one of two key issues that defined Myanmar's "incomplete" democratic transition.

The second key feature that limited Myanmar's democratic transition was that of disallowing anyone with a close family relative being resident in another country from running for the presidency.

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-16/kingsbury-myanmars-election-shows-democracy-has-stalled/6624588

[Emster23]

Thailand and Myanmar may be nominally Buddhist nations, but willing to quote from Bible regarding elections: "Many are called, but few are chosen"

[Kannikapor88]

An election is called, but democracy has stalled in Myanmar

Oh also there ...

[Srikcir]

At least Myanmar has a constitution and some modicum of an elected government.

It makes Thailand look like a school yard playground.

[spidermike007]

Myanmar is a dictatorship and Terrible Than is still the dictator. Little has changed. Small changes to ease sanctions so Chinese companies can buy mining equipment cheaper. That's about it.