Mon 15 Sep 2008
Filed under: News, Inside Burma
Burma’s first election in nearly two decades will be held 18 months from now, according to a source in the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a mass organization formed by the country’s ruling junta.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said that senior officials of the USDA told its members that the organization has only eighteen months from now to prepare to win the election.
“The USDA may have two parties in the election—the National Prosperity Party and the National Security and Development Party,” the source said. “But nobody, except top members of the USDA, will know exactly until the regime introduces a law on political party registration for the election.”
The law is expected to be announced by the end of this year, he added.
Htay Aung, a Burmese researcher with the Network for Democracy and Development, based in Thailand, also said that he had heard Burma’s military rulers were planning to promulgate the election law for the 2010 election by end of this year or early next year.
“But the junta won’t allow hundreds of parties to register, as they did in 1990. They will copy China, which has eight political parties,” he said.
He added that he didn’t think the whole USDA would be transformed to political parties for the election, but said he believed the USDA would form at least two proxy parties. “The USDA will still be a national organization after the election,” he said.
During his latest visit to Burma from August 18 to 23, the United Nations Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari met with members of other pro-junta political groups that are also likely to participate in the 2010 election.
These include the 88 Generation Students Youths (Union of Myanmar), a splinter group of the democratic opposition led by former student activist Aye Lwin, and the Wun Tha Nu (Patriotic) National League for Democracy, also sponsored by the Burmese junta.
“We can expect to see people like Ko Aye Lwin in the election,” said Htay Aung. “But I think the junta will only allow them to join the election under a pro-junta party banner, not as in freely formed political parties.”
Htay Aung pointed to the fact that the junta stopped Aye Lwin’s group from putting up a signboard in Mandalay as evidence that it wasn’t prepared to allow independent political activity.
Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, the information minister, said at a press conference on September 8 that arrangements were being made for the multiparty general election in 2010.
“Every political party which is in conformity with the prescriptions of the already approved constitution and rules and laws on political parties to be prescribed in the future will have rights to stand for the 2010 election,” the information minister was quoted as saying in the state-run New Light of Myanmar.
Asked when the election law would be introduced, Kyaw Hsan said: “Authorities concerned are making arrangements for all the matters in time.”
In the last election in 1990, several pro-regime parties, led by the National Unity Party (NUP), were registered. Allied parties of the NUP were the Worker Unity Party, the Farmer Unity Party and the Youth Unity Party.
Although those parties were strongly supported by the military regime, the opposition National League for Democracy won a landslide victory, getting more 80 percent of the seats.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Irrawaddy: Election in 18 months – Wai Moe
Mizzima News: Aung San Suu Kyi agrees to accept fresh food supplies - Solomon
Mon 15 Sep 2008
Filed under: News, Inside Burma
Burma’s detained opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will accept fresh food supplies on Monday, after refusing deliveries for a month, her party – National League for Democracy – spokesperson said.
“She has agreed to accept food supplies again, so preparations are on to send food this evening,” Nyan Win, spokesman of the NLD told Mizzima.
Nyan Win said, the Nobel Peace Laureate has decided to accept food after the ruling junta partially granted some of her demands including her right to receive international news magazines and to receive mails from families and to allow her aides to go out.
“She decided to accept food again because the authorities allowed some points of her demands,” said Nyan Win.
But Nyan Win failed to clarify why the Burmese democracy icon has been refusing fresh food supplies since mid-August.
Rather, he said, the detained party leader had made her demands known to the junta authorities through her personal lawyer Kyi Win, who in two months was allowed four visits to her.
Following his fourth visit on Thursday, Kyi Win said the government had partially granted some of Aung San Suu Kyi’s demands.
In early September, rumours began circulating that the detained pro-democracy leader is staging a hunger strike against her illegal detention.
Nyan Win on Monday, said it was not true saying, “[Aung san Suu Kyi] told her lawyer that she is not on hunger strike but managed by eating a very limited amount of food in those days.”
He added that due to the limited food that she had to manage with for a month, Aung San Suu Kyi is now feeling weak and needed rest.
“She also told her lawyer that she wants to meet U Aung Kyi, when she is in better health,” said Nyan Win.
Earlier, Aung San Suu Kyi had turned down a meeting with Aung Kyi, the junta’s liason minister, on the ground that she is weak and needed rest, her lawyer Kyi Win said.
On Sunday, Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed a visit by her family doctor Tin Myo Win, who examined her for more than four hours.
While Dr. Tin Myo Win could not be reached for comment, Nyan Win said, “According to a recent agreement [between the government and Aung San Suu Kyi] Tin Myo Win will be allowed to visit her once a month.”
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent more than 12 of the past 19 years under house arrest. She was last arrested in May 2003. Her lawyer and her party members said the Burmese law does not permit her to be detained for more than five consecutive years.
But the ruling junta in May renewed her detention period saying their interpretation of the Burmese law allows them to detain her up to a maximum of six years.
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