Talk:Burmese constitutional referendum, 2008

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Burmese constitutional referendum, 2008 is part of WikiProject Myanmar (Burma), a project to improve all Burma related articles on Wikipedia. The WikiProject is also a part of the Counteracting systemic bias group on Wikipedia aiming to provide a wider and more detailed coverage on countries and areas of the encyclopedia which are notably less developed than the rest. If you would like to help improve this and other Burmese-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.

Myanmar (Burma) To-do: edit purge Contribute to recent events articles: 2007 Burmese anti-government protests and International reaction to the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests Create requested articles on Burmese subjects. Improve Top-importance and High-importance articles. Add the newly created category, Burmese democracy activists to appropriate biography articles. Develop articles on states/local divisions of the country and articles on smaller towns and villages

Thanks for undoing my edit - my rollback has gone haywire and I didn't notice it! AndrewRT(Talk) 22:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Text of constitution

Is the text of the constitution draft available? F (talk) 13:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Good luck finding that. There's a dearth of news coverage on this at all... we might just have every article published, just in our citations here.  :) There was a page from the myanmar government that details the constitution currently, very prominent in the google search. I'm not really wanting to read through their pages to find the referendum though. Robbiemuffin (talk) 00:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I would also like to see it: the third listed goal of the referendum seems to specifically target Aung San Suu Kyi. 24.8.20.66 (talk) 03:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Campaign

I changed the first sentence of the campaign section. It was worded very awkwardly, saying that people were urged with pro-Yes radio and television media. The referenced material did not support the earlier write up. (And of course nowhere said "pro-Yes"! Lol, that was good though.) I've brought that part of the sentence in line with the reference. The first part of the sentence remains factually unsourced so I have put citation needed marks in, however I fully expect these are correct and I hope someone can come back and bring the article towards factual accuracy, and remedy the somewhat disjoint sentence. Robbiemuffin (talk) 23:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Calvin, that's a great edit. Robbiemuffin (talk) 00:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Marriage to a non-Burmese

This section has been edited many times, and in the absence of a translation of the referendum text/proposed constitution we are faced with a contradiction. Two facts are clear:

• 1)ASSK is not married to a "foreigner": she is a widow and death dissolves marriage;
• 2)Press sources are suggesting that the clause disqualifying the spouse of a non-Burmese from presidential office is directed against ASSK.

This seems to me to throw up 3 possibilities:

• a) the proposed constitution actually says that anyone who ever has been married to a foreigner is disbarred;
• b) this clause does not legally impede ASSK from the presidency, and the press are being overzealous in their wish to criticise the proposals; or
• c) in Myanmar culture, death does not dissolve marriage.

It would be good to have a clarification, but until we get one (I repeat, a translation of the proposal would be the best solution) we should not include that which is self-contradictory. Kevin McE (talk) 14:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

At the least we should state what has been repeatedly cited in the media - that Suu Kyi would be barred from running for the Presidency. Not to mention thsi important fact would fil to comply with WP:Undue Weight AndrewRT(Talk) 21:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. At the *very* least, we should mention that many media report this. —Nightstallion 22:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

France 24 had a video report on this recently. They said that any person who had ever been married to a foreigner would be barred from the presidency. You can watch it here (in French), on the sidebar on the right of the article, by clicking "Ce que prévoit le projet constitutionnel". Aridd (talk) 19:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)