Lawmakers in Myanmar are gathering for a new session of parliament where they are expected to choose the country’s first democratically elected government in over 50 years.
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National League for Democracy (NLD) party leader Aung San Suu Kyi applauds as she attends a farewell ceremony at the Parliament in Naypyitaw.
“They (people) hope that every problem will be solved automatically after the NLD becomes the government, FDI (foreign direct investment) will come in”, said Shwe Mann, the outgoing speaker of parliament, who is close to Suu Kyi despite being a former leader of the junta-linked Union Solidarity and Development Party.
On Monday, her pro-democracy MPs were sworn in and took their seats alongside politicians from other emerging parties and the armed forces, for which the constitution reserves 25% of the seats in parliament.
Each of the parliament’s two chambers, the Lower House or House of Representatives and the Upper House or House of Nationalities, will appoint its presidential candidate and the military officials who hold a quarter of seats will put forward their nominee.
Monday’s sitting of Parliament is the first step in a drawn-out transition which will culminate in the new government officially starting its term in April.
In 1989, Suu Kyi, now 70, was put under house arrest, where she would spend much of the next two decades, proving to be a thorn in the sides of Burma’s military rulers both during her incarceration and in periods of release.
Many members, including the Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, suffered years of persecution and imprisonment by the junta that had ruled Myanmar for 49 years until a semi-civilian government took power in 2011.
The 51.5 million population expect a lot from the NLD, from bringing peace to fractured ethnic states to stopping the abuse of Rohingya Muslims by the Buddhist majority in Rakhine. Her sons are British not Burmese.
Suu Kyi’s camp will start the formation of a government after decades-long struggle against the junta that had ruled Myanmar for 49 years.
However, that individual is unlikely to be Suu Kyi, who has been barred from the presidency by a vindictive constitutional arrangement.
One incoming NLD member of parliament with whom I was speaking last month would occasionally stray into sensitive territory regarding the NLD’s plans. The Assembly must determine also the next head of State, the Office is filled end of March.
“We are anxious, or concerned that our people have little or no experience in actual governance”, the NLD leader said, explaining why the party had been discussing who from the outgoing administration might be retained.
Few people in Myanmar think that the military will seek to prevent a transfer of power along the lines prescribed in the constitution, a document they wrote to protect their interests even in the event of an NLD landslide like the own that occurred in November.
Three key ministries – home affairs, defence and border affairs – are also chosen by the military’s commander-in-chief.
For it to be Suu Kyi there would have to be an incredible last minute deal and constitutional change. Possible candidates include Dr. Tin Myo Win, 64, Suu Kyi’s personal physician and a former political prisoner.
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“It was very hard to imagine we would ever get to this day”, she said.
