Burma’s legislature has been a boon for the country. But building a
parliamentary house takes time
The changes in Burma over the
past two years have been startling. But what is arguably the most important
development has gotten the least international attention: The country now has a
vibrant, independent legislature.
In Burma today, members of
parliament are investigating land disputes and corruption, cutting ministry
budgets, seeking justice for extrajudicial killings by the military and, most
importantly, delivering tangible benefits to their constituents. Indeed, many
parliamentarians find themselves in a state of disbelief at what they have been
able to achieve since the first parliament session convened in January 2011.
With so much changing so quickly,
MPs’ desire to implement a system of political checks and balances has
regularly brought them into conflict with government ministers who are more
used to autocracy than legislative oversight.
Expectations were low following a
deeply flawed election in November 2010, in which the military-backed Union
Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won about three-quarters of the seats
in the fledgling parliament, largely due to a boycott by Aung San Suu Kyi’s
National League for Democracy (NLD). The ethnic and opposition parties that
contested the vote won around 20 percent of the seats up for grabs.
“Before, I thought that this
parliament was also just under the USDP and we have to follow whatever they do.
But there are many things we can do,”
said J Yaw Wu, an upper house representative from the northern state of
Kachin.
Since securing a place in
parliament, J Yaw Wu has helped organize relief flights to the remote northern
town of Putao to alleviate food shortages, lobbied for greater ethnic minority
representation on parliamentary committees and delegations, and pushed the
government to crack down on immigration officials who are extorting money from
members of the Lisu minority. He is also a member of a commission dedicated to
investigating land disputes throughout the country.
During our interview in
Naypyitaw, he pulled a thick dossier from his bag that was marked with the name
of a township that is notorious for land confiscations.
“The people bring us these all
the time,” he said, referring to the dossier, which contained a complaint that
had been submitted to the committee to investigate. Parliamentarians from the
USDP are not alone in their difficulties adjusting to the new political reality
in Burma. The transformation has been just as dramatic for the 41
representatives of the NLD, including Aung San Suu Kyi, who won seats in the
by-elections held in April 2012.
In a matter of months, Zaw Myint
Maung went from languishing in jail to rubbing shoulders with MPs who had until
only recently been appointed by the commander-in-chief under the 2008
military-backed constitution.
Although the NLD has vowed to
amend the constitution and remove military MPs from parliament – they hold 25
percent of the seats – Zaw Myint Maung said that their presence has provided a
“good opportunity” for the NLD to engage with the Tatmadaw military party on a
daily basis.
“[When] we talk about the issue
of the future of our democratic system, our transition period, we have no
problem with each other,” he said. “We are friends now.”
He added, “I’ve been in prison
for nearly eighteen and a half years with the political case but now we are in
the parliament with them. [It is] very funny. I didn’t imagine I would be here
in the parliament. … My life has changed, but I have no resentment towards them
for that time. Now we want to [ensure] democratic stability, genuine democracy.
We want to cooperate with the other parties, including military members, for
the betterment of the people.”
Blurred Party Lines
One of the most striking features
of Burma’s post-military rule parliament has been its lack of party allegiance.
On countless occasions over the past two years, parties have split when voting
on proposals and bills – even during the tightly controlled first session.
Despite ostensibly coming from
the same party, USDP legislators regularly ignore recommendations from
government ministers, and even the president. In February 2012, President Thein
Sein returned a parliament-approved draft of the Ward and Village-Tract
Administration Law, and recommended that the selection process for local
administrators be changed from being determined by secret ballot to “negotiated
selection”. Representatives narrowly voted against the proposal, 278 to 236.
Splits have also occurred along
more easily discernible lines, such as the vote in September 2012 on the
proposal to impeach the Constitutional Tribunal. All Tatmadaw representatives
voted against the proposal, while elected MPs gave it unanimous support.
However, in a subsequent vote in
the lower house to amend the Constitutional Tribunal Law, two civilian
parliamentarians – Dr. Sai Kyaw Ohn and U Ye Tun, both from the Shan
Nationalities Democratic Party – opposed the bill with the Tatmadaw.
MPs attribute this development to
a range of factors, including the composition of parliamentary committees. In
each of Burma’s 15 parliamentary committees, there are 15 members. On average,
about one-third of the members are from non-USDP parties.
The upshot of this committee
composition is that representatives are forced to regularly mix with their
counterparts from other parties in more intimate settings than the
parliamentary chamber.
“Now there are so many committees
and we are all cooperating. We are basically party-less in terms of how we
think and operate,” Khine Maung Yi of the National Democratic Force told me at
an upscale café in Yangon during a break between parliament sessions.
Ironically, one of the prime
movers in this interparty cooperation has been Thura Shwe Mann, the speaker of
the lower house and formerly the third-ranking official in the military regime.
Overlooked for the presidency in
favor of Thein Sein, Thura Shwe Mann has encouraged MPs to shed party
allegiances and focus instead on the national interest. He speaks regularly of
the need for “reciprocal checks and balances”.
Many question his motives,
suggesting that the acting USDP chairman is angling for a run at the presidency
in the 2015 election. Nonetheless, his leadership of the lower house has made
Thura Shwe Mann deeply popular among MPs.
“The one I like most is the
speaker, Thura Shwe Mann. He encourages us a lot,” Khine Maung Yi said to me.
Despite the progress they have
made, Burma’s MPs still face a number of challenges in carrying out their
legislative duties. Foremost among them is limited access to resources. For
example, the parliament complex has only recently been given an internet
connection.
Further, many of the legislators
have little experience in administrative or legal matters. This leaves a
relatively small number to do the bulk of the work. Their relative inexperience
has created problems when resolving national crises, such as the ethnic
conflicts that have broken out in the states of Kachin and Rakhine.
Clouds on the Horizon
Burma’s political progress during
the past two years is nothing short of miraculous, but there is no guarantee
that it will continue.
As the 2015 election approaches,
Thura Shwe Mann and other members of the USDP may decide to create more sharply
drawn party lines. Given his powerful position as speaker of the lower house,
this would not be particularly difficult for Thura Shwe Mann to do.
There is also a conflict brewing
over the Constitutional Tribunal, which was impeached by the parliament in
September 2012. The dispute stems from the tribunal’s March 2012 decision,
which ruled that parliamentary committees, commissions and bodies do not
possess the same status as government ministries. MPs argued that this
limitation would limit their ability to act as a check on the government.
This ongoing saga took a new
twist on January 14th, when the parliament approved amendments to the
Constitutional Tribunal Law. These amendments muddy the waters about whether
the tribunal’s decisions are final.
Despite warnings by President
Thein Sein and Deputy Attorney General Tun Shin that the proposed changes would
be unconstitutional, MPs held their ground and approved the amendments.
Observers, including the
increasingly vibrant local media, have questioned whether the parliament
dangerously undermined the judiciary by seeking to maintain its power vis-à-vis
the government.
“At first, both [the government
and parliament] tried to follow this book,” a Burmese journalist told me,
holding up a copy of the 2008 constitution. “But now the parliament is using
its majority to do things that are not in line with the constitution. Neither
group has a tradition of compromise or negotiation. They just do things by
force.”
In a November 2012 report titled
Myanmar: Storm Clouds on the Horizon, the International Crisis Group noted that
the impeachment of the Constitutional Tribunal “provided a clear demonstration
of the enormous powers of the USDP-dominated legislature”.
The report continued, “With over half
of the seats, the party has the ability to impeach any public official if it is
able to secure the support of an additional ten per cent of representatives. …
It is likely that the threat of impeachment could be used again to pressure the
executive.”
But representatives are aware of
the need to balance confrontation with compromise. During a discussion in
November, instances of corruption were uncovered in fifteen ministries by the
Office of the Auditor General. Following this discussion, Win Htein, a
lower-house representative for the NLD from the city of Meiktila, offered a
balanced solution.
Win Htein said that it would be
best to resolve cases of misappropriation through a mixture of “some action and
… some negotiation so that the funds lost will be reimbursed by the persons
concerned”.
He continued, “It is important
that it is not confrontational. Because we discuss it openly it will help
transparency. I think it will improve later and they will manage [budgets]
properly.”
Ultimately, this representative
seems to speak for most MPs. As a whole, Burma’s young legislature remains
acutely aware that the parliament is a work in progress, which it will continue
to be into its second and third terms.
“I think of the experience of
being a member of this first parliament as being like trying to lay the
foundations to build a house,” said Tun Aung Kyaw of the Rakhine Nationalities
Development Party. “We can’t build a house immediately. First we make the
foundations. And that’s what we are doing now.”
Thomas Kean
Thomas Kean is the editor of the English language edition of the Myanmar
Times, a weekly newspaper based in Yangon
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