Myanmar leader: Army to maintain dominant role in politics

By Joshua Carroll

YANGON, Myanmar

The military will maintain its dominant role in politics despite Myanmar’s attempts to move towards democracy following decades under dictatorship, the country's president said in an interview Friday.

Thein Sein told the BBC that the army would support Myanmar’s transition, but did not indicate when it would finally step aside and allow full-fledged civilian rule.

A quarter of seats in Myanmar’s parliament are reserved for military personnel under a constitution written by the former junta. That gives generals an effective veto over any changes to the charter, which require a 75 percent majority.

The opposition National League for Democracy has gathered five million signatures on a petition calling for the constitution to be amended.

As well as removing men in uniform from parliament, they also want to scrap a clause that bars their leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from becoming president because she has British family. 

Despite widespread euphoria after 2011 when Thein Sein began reforms -- including the release of hundreds of political prisoners -- many people have since concluded that the military has decided the transition has gone far enough, and is bent on keeping its grip on power.

Thein Sein denied that during Friday’s interview. "It's not true that reforms have stalled because of the military," he said.

"The Tatmadaw [Myanmar’s army] does not get involved with political parties and is only concerned with the national interest."

Thein Sein, himself a former general, leads the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party party, which later this year will face off with the opposition National League for Democracy in a general election.

The last time the opposition party contended a general election in 1990, it won by a landslide. But the military refused to acknowledge the win, and has kept its grip on power ever since.

That mind-set has now changed, according to the president.

"In fact the military is the one who is assisting in the flourishing of democracy in our country," he said. "As the political parties mature in their political norms and practice, the role of the military gradually changes."

But pro-democracy activists are likely to scoff at the notion that Myanmar’s notorious military, long scolded for human rights abuses, can be part of democratic reforms.

"The most basic and essential reform needed in Burma [Myanmar] is to reduce the power of the military in political affairs," Mark Farmaner of Burma Campaign U.K. told The Anadolu Agency on Friday.

"President Thein Sein has ‎effectively just ruled that out."