Military Junta lied Again ???

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

Myanmar's surprise announcement that it will hold a vote on a new constitution this May and a general election in 2010 drew little enthusiasm Sunday among the military regime's critics and the public at large. The official announcements late Saturday of the constitutional referendum and the election were the first moves by the junta to set dates for stages of its so-called road map to democracy."The time has now come to change from military rule to democratic civilian rule," said the announcement for the 2010 polls, broadcast on state TV and radio.

"I am not interested in their referendum because the results are known already," said 48-year old noodle salad seller Mar Mar Aye, echoing the popular belief that the government is confident its constitution will be approved.

"The announcement is vague, incomplete and strange," NLD party spokesman Nyan Win said Saturday night.

Scheduling the referendum for May makes it difficult for the junta's critics to mount a campaign against it, particularly because most of the country's leading pro-democracy activists are in jail, many detained in connection with last year's anti-government demonstrations.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962 and has not had a constitution since the last one was scrapped in 1988, when the army brutally put down earlier pro-democracy demonstrations and the current junta took power.

Guidelines for a new constitution were adopted by a military-managed national convention last year, and a government-appointe d commission is now drafting the document.

Myanmar's ethnic minority groups, some of whom have been seeking greater autonomy for decades, complained the constitution would give the central government greater powers even as the minorities have been seeking more administrative and judicial autonomy in their home areas.

A clause in the draft guidelines guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in the country's parliament, with the representatives nominated by the commander in chief. The guidelines also disqualify presidential candidates who are "entitled to the rights and privileges of a ... foreign country." The clause would bar Suu Kyi, because her late husband was British, thus conferring on her some of the privileges of British nationality.