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Low-ranking military officers appointed to parliament
Irrawaddy - January 21, 2011
Ba Kaung – Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the head of Burma's ruling junta, has appointed 388 low-ranking military officers to fill the 25 percent of seats reserved for the military in the country's national, state and regional legislatures, according to an official announcement that appeared in state-run newspapers on Friday.
Under Burma's 2008 Constitution, 110 seats in the lower house of the national parliament, 56 in the upper house, and 222 in the state and regional parliaments are reserved for military appointees selected by the country's armed forces chief.
According to today's announcement, most of these seats were filled by majors or captains, with just 19 going to colonels and one to a brigadier general who was appointed to serve as a legislator in the Karen State parliament.
The announcement comes as Burma prepares to convene its first session of Parliament in 22 years on Jan. 31. The military-drafted Constitution will officially come into effect when the national Parliament sits in the capital Naypyidaw on that day.
The military quota is designed to block efforts to amend the Constitution, which stipulates that changes can only be made with the support of more than 75 percent of legislators in the bicameral Parliament.
On the other hand, the quota enables military appointees to propose amendments without the support of civilian lawmakers, since the Constitution states that submitting suggested changes to the charter requires the backing of just 20 percent of legislators.
In addition to the military appointees, the Parliament will be dominated by other pro-military lawmakers from the junta's proxy, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which won more than 77 percent of the seats in last year's Nov. 7 election.
The junta's Prime Minister Thein Sein and its third- and fourth-ranking officials, Shwe Mann and Tin Aung Myint Oo, are among the USDP elected representatives.
On Jan. 31, the representatives will meet in Naypyidaw to elect the heads and deputy heads of the two-chamber Parliament and also to nominate vice-presidents. On the same day, new regional legislatures will convene.
The army will nominate one of three vice-presidents, while the other two will be selected by a majority of civilian representatives in the upper and lower houses.
One of the three vice-presidents, who are required to be "acquainted with political, administrative, economic and military affairs," will be selected as president.
The Constitution states that presidential and vice-presidential candidates need not be members of Parliament to qualify for these positions, which can be held for no more than two five-year terms.
According to recent unconfirmed reports obtained by The Irrawaddy, 77-year-old Than Shwe has already appointed himself president of the new government.
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