A strange thing is happening to Burma's fledgling
democracy. Fueled by the ambitions of a parliamentary powerbroker, a peculiar assortment
of political bedfellows -- from opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to ruling
party members, ethnic rights activists, and military officers -- is posing a growing
challenge to executive authority.
COMMENTS (0)
More...
For the country's president, Thein Sein, escalating friction
with the legislature is weighing on an ambitious reform program and putting key
ministers under unprecedented pressure. Constitutional law experts say the
growing tussle between executive and legislative arms highlights Burma's fiendishly
opaque power balance, enshrined in a military-authored constitution, and sets
the stage for bigger confrontations ahead.
Much of the new dynamic emanates from the spired halls
of the country's fledgling parliament,
inaugurated in early 2011 in Naypyidaw, the shiny new capital 416 miles north
of Rangoon. Contrary
to earlier predictions that the new parliament would be a toothless "rubber
stamp" body, the legislature's robust grilling of ministers and bureaucrats,
its protracted battles to amend draft bills, and its critical stance on some government
initiatives have drawn both respect and -- increasingly -- expressions of concern
from some quarters.
Ultimately, some pundits warn, parliamentary actions
-- including demands to control the government's conduct of peace negotiations
with ethnic rebels -- could "neuter" the president and his reformers, or even
bring them down. Others play down the impact of the perceived rift, and welcome
the display of legislative muscle-flexing as a sign of budding democratic
processes.
"It's healthy. It happens around the world, elected legislatures
question and criticize governments -- that is democracy in action. And that is what
we are seeing in Naypyidaw," a senior diplomat recently told me.
More from Democracy Lab
- The Phantom of the Airport
- 'Widows Are the Invisible People'
- The Government Ban on Just About Everything
The problem is that Burma's parliament is not what any
western observer would call a "freely elected body." In its combined houses, one-quarter
of the 664 seats are occupied by active military personnel, chosen by the
commander-in-chief and reshuffled on occasion.
Both houses are overwhelmingly dominated by lawmakers
from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), who won their
seats in a 2010 election condemned by western governments as deeply flawed. Among
a handful of opposition groups is Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League
for Democracy (NLD), which boycotted the 2010 election but swept 43 of 44 parliamentary
seats in by-elections last year. Alongside them are numerous ethnic parties,
each with regional priorities and shifting stances on national issues.
The improbable dynamic within this disparate group reached
a watershed in late June, the first week of parliament's current session, when the
powerful Lower House attacked the government's conduct of peace negotiations
with ethnic rebels and its awarding of telecoms licenses to foreign companies.
Those events were just the latest signs of escalating
tensions that have prompted both foreign and local analysts to warn of a steady
parliamentary encroachment on government powers. The trend has gained momentum since
last September, when parliament won a showdown over powers of the constitutional
court after threatening to impeach the court's judges and even the president.
No comments:
Post a Comment