Myanmar ready to adopt constitution guidelines on road to democracy

MYANMAR: Myanmar will hold a final session of a constitution-drafting convention on July 18, seven months after the meeting was suspended by the country’s military rulers, state media reported.

The national convention is drafting guidelines for a new constiution, the first of seven steps outlined in a “roadmap to democracy” which the junta says will culminate in free elections. No timetable has been announced for completion of the process.

Critics consider the proceedings a sham because most of the 1,000 delegates are hand-picked by the junta and because pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi - currently under house arrest - cannot attend.

Her party, the National League for Democracy, has boycotted the convention to protest the continued detention of Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders.

The date for resuming the convention was announced after a meeting of the National Convention Convening Commission on Tuesday in the capital Naypyitaw, said the announcement on radio and TV.

The meeting was chaired by Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, a top member of the junta as well as the commission’s chief.

The convention last met in December 2006. In March this year, Information Minister Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan told journalists that a draft of guidelines for drawing up a new constitution was near completion.

Myanmar has been without a constitution since 1988, when the 1974 charter was suspended.

The junta first convened the convention in 1993, but its work was aborted in 1996 after delegates from Suu Kyi’s party walked out in protest, saying it was undemocratic and that the military was manipulating the proceedings.

The convention was resurrected in 2004, although Suu Kyi’s party continued to shun it.

Yangon, Wednesday, AP