Myanmar’s main opposition party will have to exclude its leader, detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, if it wants to continue to operate and run in upcoming elections, under the terms of a law made public yesterday.
Under the second of five new election laws, which are being published gradually in state media, the military government is making Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and some other parties re-register within 60 days with a new election commission.
Failure to do so means they would have to fold.
To register, however, they have to exclude party members who are serving prison terms. That would include Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention and is now serving 18 months in house detention for allegedly breaching security laws.
Many other senior NLD members are among the more than 2,000 political prisoners in Myanmar, rights activists said.
“We find some of the provisions in this law very unfair and completely unacceptable. We feel sure this law will not be conducive to national reconciliation in our country at all,” NLD spokesman Nyan Win said.
Parties wanting to register will also have to make a written commitment to uphold the Constitution passed in 2008, which the NLD rejects and campaigned against.
“It’s completely impossible for us,” Nyan Win said.
Most opposition parties refused to recognize the new Constitution, arguing that it was drafted by the military regime’s handpicked delegates with the intention of cementing the military’s grip on power, even after democratic elections.
An election is planned for this year, but no date has been set and the laws that state media started publishing on Tuesday have so far given no hint on timing.
The NLD has not said whether it would run in the election.
The election has been widely derided as a sham to make the country appear democratic, with the military retaining control over key ministries and institutions.
A separate law published on Tuesday said a Union Election Commission of at least five people would be formed to oversee political parties and organize the vote.
It would have the power to annul polls in places where “natural disasters or security reasons” prevented the vote from being free and fair.
Some analysts said that meant the junta could scrap polls in regions where armed separatists, who have enjoyed de facto autonomy for more than 50 years, refused to take part.
The regime wants ethnic groups to disarm, transfer their fighters to a government-run Border Guard Force (BGF) and join the political process.
“The 2008 State Constitution is completely unacceptable, let alone the election laws,” said Aye Tha Aung, an ethnic politician and secretary of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament, a loose alliance of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD and ethic parties.
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