In a way, [Senior General Than Shwe is] looking like he sort of had some foresight, but things can backfire, especially when you’re playing with pretending to be a Parliament and you really don’t quite know what a Parliament should be doing.
– Maureen Aung-Thwin, head of the Burma project at the Soros Foundation, quoted in Liam Cochrane, “Burma’s new parliament labelled a ‘farce’”, ABC Radio Australia, 31 March 2011.
Senior General Than Shwe is trying to pose in history and in the people’s eyes as the benefactor of Burma giving back political power to the people by reintroducing constitution, re-electing parliament and by re-constituting a “civilian government”. But General Ne Win had done it before him with the 1974 Constitution and successive elected BSPP Governments that ultimately was rejected in 1988.
Now Than Shwe is worse than Ne Win as he did not resign from his Senior General Post after the dissolution of the SPDC and will remain in charge outside the Parliament. He appointed General Min Aung Hlaing as the Commander in Chief of the Burma’s Armed Forces just before the President was sworn in, that in itself is an affront as the president or Parliament must appoint the C in C of he Armed Forces.
What a farce Than Shwe has made? What a clown he is in democratic practice!
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