Myanmar opens junta-dominated parliament

Myanmar's new junta-dominated parliament opened on Monday as lawmakers assembled in secrecy following a widely panned election for the country's first legislative session since the late 1980s. No foreign media representatives were allowed to witness the event or even take photographs of the new parliament building where elected and designated lawmakers convened in the military regime's purpose-built capital, Naypyidaw.
Police manned checkpoints and barricades leading up to the chambers, where lawmakers began to appoint senior roles after the session began, as planned, at exactly 8:55 am (0225 GMT). The timing - almost certainly a product of the regime's penchant for astrology - was just one aspect of the new parliament peculiar to a nation that has withered under the iron grip of military rule since 1962.
Myanmar activists and analysts were divided over whether Monday's opening heralded at least a small step towards positive political change or simply consolidated the power of the military behind a semblance of civilian rule. After a rare election in November marred by the absence of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and claims of cheating and intimidation, the junta was set to easily dominate Myanmar's first parliamentary session in two decades.
The formation of the national assembly in Naypyidaw and 14 regional assemblies takes the country towards the final stage of the junta's so-called "roadmap" to a "disciplined democracy", conceived in 2003. But a quarter of the seats were kept aside for the military even before the vote, and the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party claimed an overwhelming victory, giving it 388 of the national parliament's 493 elected seats.
The opposition National Democratic Force (NDF), which split from Suu Kyi's party in order to contest the vote, has a total of 12 seats in the legislature's two chambers, and the Democratic Party (Myanmar) has none. While the regime may have been planning for years, the lawmakers themselves were in the dark about their roles before entering the parliament, where rules banned recording devices, computers and mobile phones.
But Khin Wine Kyi, an NDF legislator, was upbeat after Monday's session. "I had a new experience today as we greeted each other and met new friends. It is good for ethnic national solidarity," she told AFP. She said they elected chairmen and speakers for both chambers, with former army number three Thura Shwe Mann becoming speaker of the lower house and culture minister Khin Aung Myint taking the equivalent upper house role.
Candidates for the position of president - who will subsequently select a government - will be nominated on Tuesday, she said. Shwe Mann had previously been linked to the top spot, which has yet to be discussed openly, but other observers said prime minister Thein Sein was now a frontrunner.
Senior General Than Shwe, who has dominated the country since taking power in 1992, is now 77 but analysts say the strongman is reluctant to relinquish his hold completely. Suu Kyi, released from seven consecutive years under house arrest a few days after the polls, downplayed the impact of Myanmar's political changes in a Financial Times interview published this weekend.