In Myanmar, a "sham" parliament stirs to life
By Jason Szep
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (Reuters) - In Myanmar's sprawling parliamentary complex, lawmakers flexed their newly democratic muscles on Thursday. Some drafted anti-graft legislation for one of the world's most corrupt nations or clamoured for transparency on a typically secret national budget.
Others wanted answers from the government: why are train lines across the country woefully inefficient? Will the government move faster to revamp clearer foreign-exchange rate laws and hold companies to task for shabby infrastructure on state contracts?
Derided as a well-choreographed sham in one of the world's most authoritarian countries when it opened a year ago, Myanmar's parliament began a third session on Thursday with feisty stirrings of democracy, under pressure to accelerate economic and political reforms that could soon convince the West to lift decades-old sanctions.
The main legislation up for debate requires the government to seek parliamentary approval for its budget. That alone is a significant change for Myanmar, where past military regimes drew up spending plans in secrecy, often carving out largesse for the army, which handed power to a nominally civilian government in March last year.
In the cavernous hallways of the lower house and the gilded main legislative chamber, legislators expressed unvarnished views, including some scathing criticism of government policy by those in the opposition.
It wasn't always this way.
"When we first came to parliament, we were worried we might be arrested," said U Ba Shin, a member of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, a major ethnic party that won nine of the lower house's 440 seats in the first general election in two decades in November 2010.
"Now there is less fear among the people. But many people still don't know their rights or speak their minds in parliament. There is big room for improvement." Continued...
