Jail threat for Suu Kyi’s party

Burmese state media warned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party on Saturday to drop protests against its dissolution, and threatened jail for anyone impeding the November vote.

A Burmese in Malaysia protests the imprisonment of Suu Kyi (Reuters)

Although the National League for Democracy (NLD) – officially disbanded this week – was not directly named, the report in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said “a party” was “attempting to mislead the people into misunderstanding the law”.

The article said the party was persuading people to “protest against the elections by boycotting” the 7 November vote, the first in two decades in the military-ruled nation.

It listed a host of prohibited activities, including “undue influence” to prevent a person from voting and “instigation, writing, distributing or using posters or attempting by other means to disturb voting”.

These acts could “on conviction be punishable with imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or with fine not exceeding one hundred thousand kyat (US$1,000) or with both,” it said.

Suu Kyi, who has been detained for much of the two decades since Burma’s last election, is due to be released just days after the upcoming vote.

The Nobel peace laureate is barred from standing in the poll because she is a serving prisoner, and the NLD opted not to register because of rules that would have forced it to expel Suu Kyi and other members.

An election commission announcement on Tuesday abolishing the NLD and other parties on the grounds that they had failed to register for the poll drew strong criticism from the West.

Critics already fear the election is simply a means to hide the military regime behind a civilian facade.

The NLD launched a counter-argument against its dissolution this week, claiming the commission lacks authority to issue the ban.

It is planning to sue the government over its abolition, as well as the 1990 poll in which the NLD won a landslide victory but was prevented from taking office by the junta.

An NLD spokesman also said the party had not committed any breach of the 1988 political party registration law, under which it was formed, which would warrant the party to be disbanded.

However, the New Light, which is seen as a mouthpiece of the military regime, on Saturday countered that the 1988 law had been replaced with new regulations this year.

Burma’s generals have stacked the cards in their favour to ensure there will not be a re-run of Suu Kyi’s victory twenty years ago.

A new constitution, which comes into force with the election, ring-fences a quarter of the legislature for the army, while junta-friendly parties are seen as having a major advantage in the contest for the remaining seats.

Opposition parties have faced formidable hurdles, including a fee of US$500 per candidate – the equivalent of several months’ wages for most people – and a tight timetable to register candidacies.

The National Democratic Force (NDF), a breakaway opposition party created by former NLD members, is among those planning to contest the vote, a decision that put it at odds with Suu Kyi, who favoured a boycott.

But the NDF and Democratic Party (Myanmar), the other main democracy party still in the running, are fielding just a fraction of the number of candidates put up by the pro-junta parties.

Source:http://www.dvb.no/elections/jail-threat-for-suu-kyis-party/11832