Myanmar military retains veto after Constitution change vote fails

A move to amend Myanmar’s constitution to remove the military’s legislative veto on key decisions fell short of the required 75 percent support in parliament on Thursday, preserving the armed forces’ powerful political role in the Asian nation. 

The result was no surprise given that a quarter of the seats in the house are, by law, held by the military, which ruled Myanmar for half a century until 2011. The proposal aimed to trim the share of house votes needed to amend the constitution to 70 per cent. Another vote on a clause that effectively bars Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president also failed. The motion voted on would have only partially amended that article, however, meaning the 70-year-old democracy icon would still have been ineligible had it been passed. 

Suu Kyi, whose National league for Democracy (NlD) won the last free election by a landslide in 1990 — a result ignored by the junta — cannot become president because her two children are British citizens, as was her late husband. Agencies