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By AUNG MOE ZAW
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Burma’s military regime announced on February 9 that a national referendum would be held in just three months’ time. The referendum will ask the people to vote for or against a constitution that the regime has spent the last 14 years writing.
The unexpected move comes just over a week after Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), warned her party to “prepare for the worst”. While the opposition was left to wonder what “the worst” might actually be and how they should prepare for it, the regime was already acting. With its announcement of a national referendum, the regime has strategically backed the opposition into a corner.
By issuing Decree 1/2008, which declares plans to hold a referendum later this year, and Decree 2/2008, which sets 2010 as the year for general elections, the regime has made it clear that they have effectively abandoned any inclusive dialogue process. Not only have they shut out the domestic opposition; they have also sidelined UN efforts to bring an end to the political crisis in Burma by unilaterally going ahead with step four of their own road map.
Nothing has changed since monks and other innocent protestors were shot and beaten on the streets for demanding democratic reforms. The referendum will be held in an environment of fear, without international monitoring or an independent referendum commission. In short, it will not be a free or fair referendum.
Nevertheless, a referendum is a democratic tool and we, the opposition, must seize it—today, while discontent and anger among the general public, including some in the rank and file of the army, is still simmering over the crackdown on the Saffron Revolution. We must honor the people’s bravery and transform the space they have created for the voice of dissent into a space for democratic opposition.
All of us—that is, the NLD, MPs, ethnic ceasefire groups, political organizations, activists and exiles—must now pool our energies to mobilize a Vote No campaign.
We must vote no to a constitution which was undemocratically drafted. To a constitution that reserves a quarter of the seats in parliament for the military. To a constitution which gives the military the right to stage a coup in any situation it deems to be an emergency. To a constitution that is designed to protect the power and position of the military.
The 88 Generation Students group and the All Burma Monks’ Alliance have already called for the people and the ethnic nationalities to reject the junta’s constitution. We all need to echo their call.
The NLD, however, has not yet stated its position. There is no time for the leadership of the main opposition party to waste. They must be quick, decisive and pro-active, since this will be the final showdown between our pro-democracy movement and the regime.
Will the leadership follow the legal path and refrain from any discussion or mention of the National Constitution as decreed in Order 5/96, thus temporarily retaining their legal position but eventually losing their legitimacy with the people when the regime wins its rigged referendum?
Or will the leadership challenge such orders and laws, which are totally contrary to the spirit of a referendum, and lead the people? The people need a leadership that represents their spirit of defiance and courage, and they need it now.
Aung Moe Zaw is leader of the Democratic Party for a New Society, an opposition group based in exile.
