March 31, 2012
YANGON: Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday that she had no plan to become a minister in the military-backed government if she wins a seat in weekend by-elections.
“I have no intention of leaving the parliament to which I have tried so hard to get into,” she said when asked if she would take a government position. Under the constitution, ministers must give up their seats in parliament. Suu Kyi also said the by-elections would not be completely democratic because of irregularities during preparations.
“I don’t think we can consider it a genuine free and fair election if we consider what has been happening here over the last few months,” the Nobel laureate told a news conference ahead of Sunday’s vote.
The irregularities are “really beyond what’s acceptable in a democratic election,” she added. “Still we are determined to go forward because this is what our people want.”
The National League for Democracy (NLD) leader said the polls were raising political awareness in the country formerly known as Burma. “We don’t at all regret having taking part,” she added.
Suu Kyi, who spent most of the past 22 years locked up by the generals who ran the country for decades, is widely expected to win a seat in a parliament dominated by the military and its political allies.
A 2010 election that swept the army’s political allies to power was marred by complaints of cheating and intimidation, as well as the exclusion of Suu Kyi, who was released from years of house arrest just days later.
The NLD has complained about what it described as “unfair treatment” by the authorities ahead of Sunday’s vote.
The party said that people in one village were forced by the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to attend one of its meetings.
It also said that in the constituency of Kawhmu near Yangon, where Suu Kyi is standing, the names of hundreds of dead people were found on the electoral roll, while more than 1,300 valid voters were left off.
President Thein Sein acknowledged in a recent speech that there had been “unnecessary errors” in ballot lists, but said that the authorities were trying to ensure the by-elections will be free and fair.
Unlike in 2010, the government has invited foreign observers and journalists to witness a vote seen as a major test of its reform credentials.
Suu Kyi is taking a leap of faith in running for parliament on Sunday, opting to enter a political system crafted and run by the soldiers who kept her locked up for a total of 15 years.
Her party’s participation in the by-elections marks a change of heart for Suu Kyi, who repeatedly rebuffed the military’s attempts to bring her into a political apparatus in which it dictated the terms.
But since a general election in November 2010, followed by Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest the same month, the pace of change in the counrry under a nominally civilian government has been staggering, enough to convince her to compromise with the apparently reform-minded ex-generals now in charge.
Some Burmese fear it is a deal with the devil that will serve mainly to endorse a military-dominated legislature. Suu Kyi is keeping an open mind.
“Some are a little bit too optimistic about the situation. We are cautiously optimistic. We are at the beginning of a road,” the 66-year-old Suu Kyi said last month. “Many people are beginning to say that the democratisation process here is irreversible. It’s not so.”
Agencies
Link :: http://gulftoday.ae/portal/a09955af-5e58-4b2d-9ee8-686213642507.aspx
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