Thoughts On A Few Things of Importance: Burma/Myanmar

In the coming election in Myanmar/Burma it seems the trap has been set which will take Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi out of Burmese politics!

How so?

The present Myanmar Constitution created by the ruling military junta says that a member of the Myanmar Parliament who is appointed to a ministerial position cannot participate in the activities of any particular political party.

The trap scenario goes like this: Aung San Suu Kyi who leads the most popular political party in Myanmar...the National Democratic League... (by which she would have led Burma, except for the military's denial of her right to lead following Burma's last democratic election in which she was the winning candidate) will undoubtedly win a seat in the next Parliament. When she does amidst all the military's propaganda about "fair and democratic election results," the military-controlled Parliament, in which 25% of its members must come from the military, and in which most of its other members are former members of the military, will "recognize" her significant showing by making her a minister in the "new government."

At that point the military's trap will have sprung.

If Aung San Suu Kyi remains politically active as the head of her party, she will have violated the Myanmar Constitution, and be subject to the consequences of having done so.

If she settles into running the minor ministry she is likely to be appointed to, she will have little to say about the running of the country as a whole, and she will likely be cautioned not to take a politically identifiable stand on any issue before the stacked Parliament.

Winning a seat in Parliament in the coming election is therefor likely to become a Pyrrhic victory for Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people. A perhaps totally honest election with a less-than-honest outcome.

(c) 2012 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.