Burma sets date for election

The announcement of the 2010 general election said “the time has now come to change from military rule to democratic civilian rule”.

It was the first time the government has set dates to carry out stages of its so-called road map to democracy.

The country’s last election was held in 1990, but the military refused to hand over power to the winner – the National League for Democracy party of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in prison or under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

Scheduling of the referendum and the election is unlikely to mollify the junta’s critics, who have charged that the proposed constitution is likely to be to be unfair and undemocratic.

Ms Suu Kyi’s party reacted cautiously, noting the lack of detail on how the referendum would be carried out.

“The announcement is vague, incomplete and strange,” said NLD party spokesman Nyan Win.

“Even before knowing the results of the referendum, the government has already announced that elections will be held in 2010,” he said, implying that the government was certain that the draft constitution will be approved.

Scheduling the constitutional referendum for this May makes it difficult for the junta’s critics to mount a campaign against it, particularly because most of the country’s leading pro-democracy activists are in jail, many detained in connection with anti-government demonstrations held in August and September last year.

The international community increased pressure on the junta to work toward political reconciliation and a quicker return to democracy after it violently quashed the non-violent mass protests, killing at least 30 people, according to a UN estimate, and detaining thousands.

Today’s announcement of the 2010 polls credited the junta with establishing stability and improving the economy, although Burma remains one of Asia’s poorest countries.

“As the military government has established the infrastructure for development in all spheres, the time has now come to change from military rule to democratic civilian rule,” it said. “Hence, the multiparty general election will be held in 2010 in accordance with the new constitution.”

Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been under military rule since 1962 and has not had a constitution since the last one was scrapped in 1988, when the army brutally put down earlier pro-democracy demonstrations and the current junta took power.

The country has been in a political deadlock since the military refused to recognise the 1990 election results, saying after the polls that the country first needed a new constitution. It harassed and arrested members of the pro-democracy movement, particularly from Ms Suu Kyi’s party.

Guidelines for a new constitution were adopted by a national convention last year, and a government-appointed commission is now drafting the document.

Critics denounced the constitutional convention process as a stage-managed farce because the military hand-picked most delegates and because Ms Suu Kyi is under house arrest and could not attend.

The National League for Democracy charged that the junta was trying to draft a constitution unilaterally, and it therefore “could not be expected to guarantee democracy, human rights and public well-being”.

Burma’s ethnic minority groups, some of whom have been seeking greater autonomy for decades, complained that the constitution would give the central government greater powers even as the minorities have been seeking more administrative and judicial autonomy in their home areas.

A clause in the draft guidelines guarantees the military 25% of the seats in the country’s parliament, with the representatives nominated by the commander in chief.

The new constitution also disqualifies presidential candidates who are “entitled to the rights and privileges of a ... foreign country” – thereby barring Ms Suu Kyi, whose late husband was British.