Myanmar military to maintain political role, president says ‎

Myanmar's military will maintain its role in politics in order to support a transition to democracy but will ‎eventually submit to civilian rule, President Thein Sein said in an interview broadcast on Friday. ‎Myanmar, formerly Burma, was ruled by the military for 49 years before a semi-civilian government ‎took power in 2011 and initiated widespread political and economic reforms. But under a 2008 ‎constitution drafted under military rule, a quarter of parliamentary seats are reserved for unelected ‎serving officers, along with some key cabinet posts, giving the military an effective veto on any ‎constitutional reform.  ‎
The opposition National League for Democracy party, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has ‎called for the military to step away from politics.  Thein Sein, a former general, said the military ‎initiated the reform process and still needed to play a political role in order to support the transition to ‎democracy.  "In fact, the military is the one who is assisting in the flourishing of democracy in our ‎country," he told the BBC.  "As the political parties mature in their political normsand practice, the role ‎of the military gradually changes."  Thein Sein did not say when the military would transition out of ‎politics, but said it would be done according to the "will of the people".‎
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for early November, and the parliament that emerges from the ‎vote will choose the next president.  Suu Kyi's party swept a 1990 vote that the ruling generals ignored, ‎and she remains hugely popular but the military-drafted constitution bars her from the presidency ‎because she has two sons with British citizenship. Her late husband was a British academic.  Thein Sein ‎denied that the clause was written in order to exclude Suu Kyi from the presidency, and said the ‎requirement was actually drafted in 1947 when the country, also known as Burma, was preparing for ‎independence from Britain.  (Source: Reuters)‎