US President Barack Obama yesterday urged Myanmar to hold “free, fair and inclusive” elections as he threw his weight behind a bid by Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to change a constitution that bars her from the presidency.
Obama held talks with fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi at her lakeside villa in Yangon, after arriving from Naypyidaw, where he discussed the nation’s troubled reform process with Burmese President Thein Sein.
Speaking at a joint press conference, he warned Myanmar’s reforms since shedding outright military rule in 2011 were by “no means complete or irreversible” and called for “free, fair and inclusive” elections in the nation, where Aung San Suu Kyi and her party are set to contest crucial polls next year.
Photo: EPA
Aung San Suu Kyi, who has publicly stated her desire to be president, is barred from the top office by a constitutional clause ruling out from the presidency anyone with a foreign spouse or children.
Her late husband and two sons are British, and the democracy champion is seeking an amendment.
Obama took up the issue telling reporters that “the amendment process needs to reflect inclusion rather than exclusion.”
“I don’t understand the provision that would bar somebody from running for president because of who his [someone’s] children are,” Obama said.
Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party is widely expected to sweep to victory in polls late next year, branded the contentious clause as “unfair, unjust and undemocratic,” adding “it is not right to discriminate against one particular citizen.”
The issue is currently being debated in parliament, where 25 percent of the seats are ring-fenced for the military.
“The majority of our people understand that this constitution cannot stand as it is,” if democracy is to be achieved, the democracy figurehead added.
The pair spoke in the garden of Aung San Suu Kyi’s villa in a reprise of their landmark meeting in 2012, which saw the US leader throw his political might behind Myanmar’s transition from junta rule.
After talks with Thein Sein late on Thursday, Obama expressed cautious optimism for the once-cloistered nation that balanced out earlier warnings on the risks of “backsliding” on the transition.
“We recognize change is hard and you do not always move in a straight line, but I’m optimistic,” Obama said.
During his two-night trip to Myanmar, the US leader has also raised alarm over the direction of reforms, citing the cramping of freedom of expression, ongoing conflicts and the treatment of Myanmar’s minority groups — especially the Muslim Rohingya.
Obama was whisked from Yangon airport to tour the British colonial-era secretariat building in downtown Yangon where Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, independence hero General Aung San, was gunned down by political rivals in 1947.
Their talks at Aung San Suu Kyi’s family home come almost four years to the day after she was released from years of house arrest.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2