Myanmar opposition sets conditions for joining 2010 polls

Yangon - Myanmar's chief opposition party on Wednesday presented the ruling junta with a list of demands it must meet, including the freeing of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, before the party will contest the general election planned next year. The preconditions were announced by National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesman Nyan Win at the end of a two-day plenary meeting of the opposition party at its Yangon headquarters, attended by more than 300 party representatives. The party's three pre-conditions for entering the 2010 general election inlcude: all political prisoners including NLD leader Suu Kyi and Tin Oo must be unconditionally released from detention; undemocratic provisions in the 2008 constitution must be amended; and an 'all inclusive free and fair general election be held under international supervision,' Nyan Win said. He added that a dialogue must be held between the junta and Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since May, 2003, to discuss the conditions set. The NLD will also closely study the government's pending Party Registration Act and Election Law, Nyan Win said. It is deemed unlikely that the military will meet any of the NLD's pre-conditions for joining the election, which is a crucial part of their so-called seven-step road map to democracy. The junta leaders have made clear they intend to pave the way for a 'disciplined, flourishing democracy,' under which they will provide the discipline. The NLD, which won the 1990 polls by a landslide but has been blocked from assuming power by the military for the past 19 years, has never accepted the draft constitution pushed though by the junta last year in a controversial referendum. The constitution essentially cements the military's dominant role in any future government by requiring a proportion of appointed senators, who would effectively be able to block any laws or amendments deemed unfavorable to the army. 'I have to point out here that NLD has not accepted the draft constitution and the way and method of approving it through a referendum,' NLD chairman Aung Shwe told the plenary session on Tuesday. The draft constitution, which took 14 years to write, was pushed through in a referendum that was deemed neither free, fair not humanitarian. The military forced villagers to vote for the charter in May 2008, when much of the country was still traumatized by Cyclone Nargis that claimed 140,000 lives on May 2-3. NLD head Suu Kyi did not attend the plenary session because she has been kept under house arrest since 2003, and has spent a total of 13 of the past 19 years under detention. There are vague hopes that the regime will release her next month, as her detention beyond five years violates current Myanmar law. Analysts believe it is unlikely the NLD will join the polls planned for possibly in May or June 2010. Without NLD participation, the outcome of next year's election is not expected to be accepted by Western democracies.