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| Southeast Asia |
| Suu Kyi to boycott elections |
| 2010-03-30 |
| [Straits Times] MYANMAR'S opposition party led by Ms Aung San Suu Kyi said on Monday it would boycott polls expected later this year, after the country's military rulers introduced a controversial new election law. The National League For Democracy decided at a party meeting to refuse to register for the first polls to be held in two decades, a move that would have forced it to oust its detained leader and recognise the junta's constitution. But the NLD now faces dissolution in less than six weeks for failing to register, according to the new legislation brought in earlier this month for the elections due to be held by the end of November. 'The National League for Democracy has decided not to register the party,' party spokesman Nyan Win said after a meeting of more than 100 senior members at NLD headquarters in the economic hub Yangon. Under the internationally-criticised election legislation, if the party had decided to sign up for the vote it would have been forced to part with Ms Suu Kyi because she is serving a prison term. The vote is part of the government's seven-step 'Roadmap to Democracy', which also includes a controversial new constitution agreed in a 2008 referendum held days after a cyclone ravaged the country. Mynmar's election legislation nullifies the result of the last polls held in 1990 that were won by the NLD by a landslide but never recognised by the junta. If the party had registered it would have been forced to recognise that decision. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 seeing as how her campaign schedule was kinda curtailed.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-03-30 19:40 |