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Burma annuls Suu Kyi's 1990 election win

RANGOON, BURMA Mar 11 2010 09:32

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Burma's ruling junta has used new election laws to officially annul the result of polls in 1990 that were won by Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, state media said on Thursday.

The regime is planning to hold elections later this year, the first in the country since Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) swept to victory two decades ago.

The NLD was prevented from taking power by the military at the time but the result has not been formally cancelled until now. Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the subsequent 20 years in detention.

"The result of the multiparty democracy elections, held under a deleted law, is automatically abolished as it is not in accordance with the Constitution," said a clause in one of the laws printed in state newspapers.

The junta enacted the long-awaited new electoral laws on Monday and details have emerged during the week.

The most controversial of them says that the NLD must expel Suu Kyi from its ranks or be dissolved on the grounds that a person serving a prison term cannot be a party member.

Suu Kyi was sentenced to three years' jail in August over an incident in which a United States man swam to her lakeside home, but her sentence was commuted by junta supremo Than Shwe to 18 months under house arrest.

Another law says that the junta itself will hand-pick members of the country's new electoral commission.

No date for this year's elections has been set but they are expected to be in October or November. -- AFP

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Comments

Wow...I hear a deafening silence about this from South Africa and the world. It seems outrage on the world stage, concerning political despotism is very selective.

The Praetor

Paul Carolus on March 11, 2010, 1:18 pm

Considering some of the election laws, it seems the Burmese Junta is getting ideas on how to hold elections from the SADC.

Especially the bit about banning opposition parties on the basis of an Election Commission picked by the party in power. (That never seems to bann ruling party candidates.)

Alisdair Budd on March 11, 2010, 3:26 pm

Sounds like someone's been reading 1984.

Dave Phillips on March 11, 2010, 3:58 pm