Myanmar planning elections

Myanmar’s military regime announced Saturday that it would ask voters to approve a new constitution in May to make way for democratic elections in 2010, a move that drew the scorn of a skeptical opposition.

“It is suitable to change the military administration to a democratic, civil administrative system, as good fundamentals have been established,” the government, which has faced international criticism for a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy opponents last fall, said in a statement broadcast on state-run television.

Nyan Win, spokesman for detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, dismissed the announcement as “vague, incomplete and strange” in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

The government has been promising a new constitution since 1993, when more than 1,000 handpicked delegates opened what the ruling generals called a national convention to prepare the way for democracy. Fifteen years later, the constitution still isn’t complete.

Last October, the regime appointed a 54-member drafting commission, headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the attorney general, to complete the task. Saturday’s statement said the constitution would be ready soon.

But many in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have already written it off as a fraud.

Until the new constitution is finished and made public, the key question is whether the generals will allow Suu Kyi to participate in free and fair elections or whether they plan to permanently sideline the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The pro-democracy movement says the convention is a front to put a civilian face on military rule. Suu Kyi has criticized the process because it excludes pro-democracy parties and representatives of Myanmar’s numerous ethnic groups.

Her party won a landside victory in the last election, in 1990. But the military government, which has been in power since 1962, rejected the result. Suu Kyi has been in detention for 12 of the last 18 years.

The generals allowed Suu Kyi to leave her home late last month to speak with officials of her party to brief them on her latest meeting with a government minister appointed to head talks with the opposition.

At the time, Nyan Win told reporters that Suu Kyi was not satisfied with the discussions, mainly because they were open-ended.

“We have to be patient, as we have sacrificed for many years,” Suu Kyi said in a statement issued after the Jan. 30 meeting. “I don’t want to give false hopes to the people. I will tell the people more when the time comes.”

After troops crushed peaceful demonstrations against the regime last fall, the U.S. and other Western countries tightened sanctions and urged the generals to hand over power to civilians. At least 31 people died in the crackdown, the United Nations reported.

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N.’s special envoy to Myanmar, had sought to return to the country early this year to resume efforts to persuade the generals to restore democracy, but the government says he can’t come back before mid-April.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said this month that the Security Council should be prepared to back up Gambari’s efforts with more pressure. Myanmar activists want the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the government.

--

paul.watson@latimes.com