Myanmar poll date meaningless without Suu Kyi
MYANMAR: Myanmar’s unexpected announcement of a timetable for
elections in 2010 could prove meaningless with Aung San Suu Kyi and
other top democracy leaders locked away, analysts said Sunday.
The military announced late Saturday that it would hold a
constitutional referendum in May to set the stage for elections in 2010,
in a move that Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD)
called “surprising.”
If held, the polls would be the first since 1990, when the NLD won a
landslide victory even though Aung San Suu Kyi was already under house
arrest. She has been confined to her home in Yangon for 12 of the last
18 years.
Analysts said the regime’s announcement raised more questions than
answers, especially about what role pro-democracy forces would be
allowed to play in elections in a country ruled by the military since
1962.
Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar at Australia’s Macquarie
University in Sydney, said he was sceptical elections would be
meaningful because so many pro-democracy activists have been arrested.
“The opposition movement is the weakest at the moment because so many
of them are all locked up,” Turnell said.
Amnesty International estimates the regime holds at least 1,850
political prisoners, including about 700 arrested during the junta’s
deadly crackdown on anti-government protests in September 2007.
The protests led by Buddhist monks were the biggest challenge to
military rule in nearly 20 years. At least 31 people were killed and 74
went missing when security forces violent broke up the crowds, according
to the United Nations.
Apart from Aung San Suu Kyi and senior NLD members, the junta has
also arrested top student leaders who rallied against the junta in 1988
in a far larger uprising that resulted in more than 3,000 deaths.
Many leaders of that uprising had been released over the last four
years and had returned to political activism, only be thrown back into
prison.
“With Aung San Suu Kyi and so many democracy leaders under detention,
it will be very difficult for oppositon groups to organise for
elections,” said Aung Naig Oo, a Thailand-based Myanmar analyst.
Turnell said the junta should release Aung San Suu Kyi and other
political prisoners to “make elections meaningful.”
“Unless they are released, it will be totally unmeaningful,” the
academic said.
Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar, agreed.
“They cannot have elections while so many people are in prison for
carrying out peaceful political activities,” Wilson said.
Yangon, Sunday, AFP
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