46 The EconomistMarch 14th 2020
1A
s the shoutingslalomed around the
chamber, Myanmar’s parliamentarians
stiffened in shock. They had only just be-
gun debating a number of proposed
amendments to the constitution, and tem-
pers were already fraying. One mp, Major-
General Tin Swe Win, bellowed repeatedly
at the speaker of the house. The ruling Na-
tional League for Democracy (nld) was
hoping to reduce the army’s big role in gov-
ernment, by gradually trimming the num-
ber of seats in the national and regional
parliaments filled by military appointees
like the major-general, among other
things. He was not in favour.
Tension continued to crackle in the
chamber for another two weeks, but on
March 10th and 11th, General Tin Swe Win
got his way. Although the nld’s amend-
ments won support from a majority of mps,
they did not reach the necessary threshold
of more than three-quarters, thanks to op-
position from the quarter of seats reserved
for serving military officers. The soldiers
rejected all substantive changes, includinga proposal to strip the army of its majority
on a committee empowered to declare a
state of emergency and thus hand power to
the army chief. An amendment to make it
easier to change the constitution in future
by reducing the required threshold from
three-quarters to two-thirds of mps was
also knocked back.
The army even rejected symbolic con-
cessions to the nldand its leader, Aung San
Suu Kyi. It blocked the party’s bid to change
the constitution’s description of Myanmar
from a “disciplined democracy” to a “de-
mocracy” plain and simple, as well as its ef-
fort to remove the clauses of the constitu-
tion that have prevented Miss Suu Kyi frombecoming president. (She runs the civilian
part of the government anyway, with the ti-
tle “state counsellor”, having installed a
loyal ally as president.)
The intransigence of the army, or Tat-
madaw, as Burmese call it, is no surprise.
The constitution, which the generals drew
up towards the end of the 50-odd years they
ran the country, deliberately avoids giving
civilian politicians unfettered control not
only of the army itself, but also of govern-
ment more broadly. Instead, it was careful-
ly crafted to maintain the generals’ “iron
grip on the security sector”, says Thant My-
int U, the author of “The Hidden History of
Burma”. In addition to appointing mem-
bers of parliament and the emergency-de-
claring committee, the army commander
can name his own notional boss, the min-
ister of defence, as well as the ministers of
the interior and border control. That gives
him control over the police, intelligence
services and border guards, as well as the
armed forces.
The Tatmadaw sees itself as the guard-
ian of the nation, and has never distin-
guished between its military and political
roles, writes Andrew Selth of Griffith Uni-
versity in Australia. The long period of mil-
itary rule in effect fused the army with the
rest of the state, says Marco Bünte of Frie-
drich-Alexander University in Germany.
Although the nldtook charge of the civil-
ian bit of the government in 2016, after a 25-
year stand-off with the Tatmadaw, formerMyanmar’s armyMaking war and law
YANGON
The generals block reforms that would have reduced their political powerAsia
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