Suu Kyi’s party proposes law to make her ‘president’s boss’
Nobel laureate to cement power with special ‘adviser’ role
yangon — The party of Aung San Suu Kyi submitted a proposal to parliament on Thursday to create a new position for her as “state adviser,” which would allow her to have a powerful hand in running Myanmar.
One lawmaker from her National League for Democracy party described the position as “the president’s boss,” indicating that Suu Kyi’s party is helping her to achieve a pledge she has repeatedly made to be above the president, who is her confidant.
The move marked the first legislative act of Myanmar’s new government, which took office a day earlier to become the first democratically elected government after more than 50 years of military control.
Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate who had endured decades of house arrest and harassment by military rulers then led her party to a landslide win in November elections, could not become president because of a junta-era constitution crafted to keep her out of the post. But she had repeatedly said she will run the country from behind the scenes.
Some critics had questioned the legality of Suu Kyi circumventing the constitution to exercise control. But the new draft law would give her legal authority to hold a powerful role in decision making, said Khin Maung Myint, an NLD lawmaker in the upper house.
“President Htin Kyaw has the right to propose the law to appoint a ‘state adviser,’ which is someone who can control the president and all the Cabinet members,” he said, referring to the job as “the president’s boss.”
Suu Kyi’s party controls both houses, and the draft law was expected to pass, he said.
Suu Kyi, 70, has also taken on four Cabinet posts, as Myanmar’s new minister of foreign affairs, education, energy and the president’s office.
Aung Kyi Nyunt, an upper house MP from central Myanmar who submitted the bill, said the new role reflected the popular mandate Suu Kyi won at the polls.
“The object of the proposal from the bill committee in the upper house parliament is to fulfil the wishes and interests of people who voted on 8 November 2015,” he told lawmakers.
Last November’s polls, the freest in decades, saw her party rake in 80 per cent of available parliamentary seats.
Suu Kyi is revered by Myanmar’s democracy movement and many believe she has earned the right to lead the country’s first civilian government since 1962.
But repeated efforts to amend the charter that disqualifies her from the presidency have been halted by a military that still retains strong political sway and a quarter of parliament’s seats, giving it an effective veto on any charter change.
The junta-scripted constitution rules out anyone with close foreign relatives; Suu Kyi’s late husband and two sons are British.
The country’s new lawmakers hail from a variety of backgrounds, from doctors to poets, but many have little experience of government. —