INTERVIEW - Myanmar polls likely in 2nd half of yr - Thai FM

By John Ruwitch

DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - Myanmar will likely hold its long-awaited election in the second half of this year because the ruling junta is still crafting the legal framework for the vote, Thailand's foreign minister said on Thursday.

Kasit Piromya made the comments after a meeting with Myanmar counterpart Nyan Win during which he was told that 60-70 percent of the election and political party laws were completed.

"You take another two or three months to make it 100 percent, so it will take you by that time from the mathematical, or the guessing point of view, to the middle of this year," Kasit told Reuters in an interview.

"So, I think the elections would be most probably in the second half."

Myanmar's reclusive junta has been silent on the timing of the election, and Nyan Win's comment to Kasit would be a rare indication of the level of progress towards holding the vote.

Nyan Win declined to answer reporters' questions on multiple occasions during a meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers in central Vietnam.

Nyan Win briefed the other foreign ministers on the preparations at a dinner on Wednesday night, but he gave no indication of the timing.

"It was assured that it will be this year and it will be free, fair and credible, and the ASEAN ministers have expressed their hope the issue of Myanmar will be resolved this year and that we can move on to the new era of ASEAN relations and cooperation with the international community," Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN secretary general, told reporters.

"No date has been set but everything is moving on course. That's what we were told."

NO RUSH

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, who also met Nyan Win on the sidelines of the Vietnam meeting, said there was no rush, as long as the vote takes place this year, and is carried out fairly and democratically, as the junta has promised.

"For us the main criterion, or the main preoccupation, would be that we have that necessary positive, democratic atmosphere for a credible election to take place," he told reporters.

"It's best to allow things for such conditions to be established rather than to rush into it and then we have a situation where the ideal condition is not there."

Little is known about the junta's legal preparations.

Critics of the army-drafted constitution say Myanmar's legislature will be dominated by the military and their civilian stooges, with limited powers and representation for dozens of ethnic groups or established opposition parties.

Myanmar's last election, in 1990, ended with a landslide win for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, but the junta ignored the result and has since jailed more than 2,000 activists and political opponents, many for minor offences.

Suu Kyi herself has been under house arrest or other sort of detention for 14 of the last 20 years.

The election in the former British colony has already been widely dismissed as a means to entrench nearly five decades of unbroken military rule, with the junta hoping a public vote would legitimise its monopoly of national politics.

The notoriously secretive regime has yet to say who can take part in the polls. Several major ethnic groups are resisting calls to join the political process, saying they have nothing to gain.

Many analysts believe the delay in naming an election date is to give the government more time to bring the ethnic groups on board, either voluntarily or through military force.

(Editing by Martin Petty and Sugita Katyal)

Source : http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-45397220100114?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0