Arakan News Agency
Arakanese lawmakers and a group of opposition parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), are asking Burma’s Constitutional Tribunal to overturn a recent parliamentary decision to grant so-called white card holders the right to vote in a planned constitutional referendum.
Pe Than, an Upper House lawmaker with the Arakan National Party (ANP), said 27 lawmakers in the house signed a letter asking the Tribunal to review Parliament’s decision on Feb. 2 to grant white card holders, also known as temporary identity registration card holders, a vote in the referendum.
“This is our last effort; we want the Constitutional Tribunal to check [the law],” he said. “We are waiting to hear the decision by the Constitutional Tribunal at the moment. We hope the best result will come out. But our Rakhine party decided already to protest throughout Rakhine State on Feb. 15.”
The 2015 Referendum Law automatically enfranchises hundreds of thousands of white card holders, who live in Burma but do not enjoy full citizenship rights.
About 700,000 of them belong to the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority in northern Arakan State, an area that has been marred by conflict between Arakanese Buddhists and Muslims. Other white card holders include Chinese nationals living in Burma, families of Gurkha units that moved to Burma under British rule and members of the ethnic Kokang living on the Burma-China border.
Pe Than said ANP chairman and Upper House representative Aye Maung had led the initiative, while the NLD, Myanmar Democratic Force and several ethnic opposition parties joined in.
Under the Constitution’s Article 322 (b), he said, 10 percent of the lawmakers of any of two Houses of Parliament could sign a letter and request the Tribunal to review whether laws violate Burma’s charter.
source : Irrawaddy
