The following is an editorial published in The Voice Weekly, August 23 – 29, 2010, p. 4, on the topic of checks and balances in Thai and Myanmar political systems.
Vocabulary:
အပြန်အလှန် ။ mutually, reciprocally
ထိန်းကြောင်း ။ to tend (as a goatherd or cowherd)
ကျွမ်းကျင်ဝန်ထမ်း ။ technical stall
သုံးသပ် ။ to ponder, consider
အဆို ။ statement; proposal
စိုင်း ။ to do as one pleases
ရွေးချယ် ။ to choose; elect
တင်မြှောက် ။ to constitute
အပြတ်အသက် ။ distinctly, decisively
အချုပ်အခြာ ။ supremacy; main point
အကျင့်သုံး ။ to conform; practice
သက်ရောက် ။ to mean, imply, incur, effect
သိမ်းကျုံး ။ to gather up; indiscriminately; sweepingly
လွှမ်းမိုး ။ to influence; overwhelm; overshadow; supercede
အလားတူ ။ be the same (in nature or status); as; similarly
ကြုံကြိုက် ။ to meet or happen by chance
ရလဒ် ။ result; consequence;
အလိုအလျောက် ။ naturally; automatically; of its own accord; spontaneously
အမတ် ။ high official of the Myanmar royal court; member of parliament; member of the legislature
ခန့်ထား ။ to assign; charge; appoint (someone to a post)
အားတက်သရော ။ heartily; energetically
Translation:
The emergence of a system of mutual minding is as important as life
In doing populist work the unique technocratic former Prime Minister Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party won the 2005 election. And while starting a second lifeline, the political consideration was of the people considering in unity. The [political] statement that was considered was a consideration that said “Thailand has arrived at a one party system that has been elected through a democratic system.” In that way, former Prime Minister Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party was victorious with decisive votes in the election.
As there was no party that would mutually check the ruling Thai Rak Thai [in] practicing a system of mutual checks on the three branches of authority in a democratic system, it led to a mentality of granting permission to do as he [Thaksin] pleased. It got to the level of Thaksin not going to attend cabinet meetings [or] parliamentary meetings [and just] giving orders by telephone. In truth, in a system of democratic practice whether or not it is a system which has mutual minding is important. And like that, from amongst the two issues of mutual minding and whoever is ruling, the issue of who is ruling should be given second priority. In democratic countries, the [situation wherein] just one party has a sweeping victory is good just for the party [that wins, but] it is not good for the relevant country and the people.
It can be seen that in ousting Thaksin’s government which was an overwhelming single party and parliament and re-writing the constitution in 2006, the Thai Armed Forces did not have an electoral system that leads to the same kind of situation [i.e. autocratic majority rule] [but rather] enacted an upper parliament system in which the members of parliament were directly appointed. It can be see that in forming authority in accordance with a parliamentary system the outcome of getting elected by the lower parliament election was promulgated and people know little about there being members of parliament directly appointed in the Thai upper parliament.
It can be seen that in the elections that will be conducted in Myanmar before long, [in accordance] with the theory there can be a base which can be mutual minding. It has been seen that because those who were involved in Myanmar politics did not value that point, enthusiasm in society decreased regarding the election. Checks and balances [during] 2011 - 2015 will be made possible if the interest of the people and other [things?] are established.
Editor (16 – 8 – 2010)
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