(MENAFN- Arab News) NAYPYITAW: A move to amend Myanmar's constitution to remove the military's legislative veto on key decisions fell short of the required 75 percent support in Parliament on Thursday preserving the armed forces' powerful political role in the Asian nation.

The result was no surprise given that a quarter of the seats in the house are by law held by the military which ruled Myanmar for half a century until 2011. The proposal aimed to trim the share of house votes needed to amend the constitution to 70 percent.
Another vote on a clause that effectively bars Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president also failed. The motion voted on would have only partially amended that article however meaning the 70-year-old democracy icon would still have been ineligible had it been passed.
Suu Kyi whose National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last free election by a landslide in 1990 a result ignored by the junta cannot become president because her two children are British citizens as was her late husband.
The NLD suffered persecution under the former junta and says the military's ability to shoot down changes to the constitution puts a limit on democratic reforms in Myanmar where a general election is expected in November.
Critics see it as an enshrined safeguard to protect the armed forces' sizeable economic and political interests.
Suu Kyi said the outcome was of no surprise and it was 'obvious' the military would not support amendments. The vote she said showed the electorate which forces in politics were for or against progress in Myanmar.
'Today's failure to amend the constitution doesn't mean that the future of the country becomes hopeless' she told a news conference.
'Just because there are people who neglect what the people wish for it doesn't mean we will stop trying.
'People realize now for whom to vote in the election and which people want change.' Just one of the proposed changes put up for voting was accepted a minor tweak to the wording of a clause that requires a presidential candidate to be 'well-acquainted' with various affairs removing the word 'military' and replacing it with 'defense.' Any approved changes require endorsement in a public referendum.
The NLD's attempts to change the constitution prior to the election have met with resistance from the military and the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) which has former officers and businessmen with ties to the army among its ranks.
Suu Kyi took a swipe at the USDP for agreeing to debate only minor amendments and said military lawmakers voting as a bloc was understandable because of their allegiance to armed forces supremo Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.