Myanmar election laws a double punishment

YANGON, Myanmar, March 12 (UPI) -- New laws barring people with criminal convictions from running in Myanmar's upcoming elections amount to "a double punishment," the country's leading democracy advocate said.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent around 14 of the past 20 years in some form of detention and remains under house arrest, slammed the junta's Political Parties Registration Law for disenfranchising prisoners and people with past criminal convictions.

Under the laws they are not allowed to belong to a political party and so excludes Suu Kyi, who is head of the National League for Democracy. That party won by a landslide in the last national elections in 1990 but the ruling military refused to recognize the results.

Suu Kyi, a 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, had her latest house arrest extended last August for violating the terms of a previous detention by briefly sheltering an uninvited U.S. intruder in her home in May 2009. She was sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor but the ruling military head of state, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, commuted the sentence to 18 months house arrest.

The laws are a disappointment for political parties and many countries hoping that a more open dialogue with the junta would lead to democratic change.

Tin Oo, deputy chairman of the NLD, told media the laws were "politically motivated" to ensure that Suu Kyi is barred from running for election.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win, who is also Suu Kyi's lawyer, said he was "extremely surprised" by restrictions.

"The law is meant to safeguard the constitution. It will be a very big problem for us as they asked us to obey a constitution that we cannot accept," he said.

The United States is "very disappointed" over the laws. "This is not what we had hoped for and it is a setback," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said this week in Bangkok during a 10-country tour of Asia.

Even though Myanmar's elections laws are now in place, Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein hasn't a date for a vote despite international pressure.

This week the junta generals also appointed their 17-person national elections commission to oversee the process. Critics said the commission is a whitewash. It is headed by former Maj. Gen. Thein Soe, a deputy chief justice who previously served as the judge advocate-general, a military position, according to the expatriate news service Irrawaddy, which reports from Thailand.

The commission will decide which political parties may contest the polls, set the rules for polling and disqualify any party or contestant for breaking those rules.

There is also a back-up for the military, which has governed Myanmar on and off for 50 years and been in power for the past 22 years. According the 2008 constitution, a one-quarter of parliamentary seats are reserved for the generals.

Parties have 60 days to register, meaning elections aren't likely before late summer and will most probably be in October or November, Irrawaddy reported.

After announcing the election laws, Sein took his election message to the troubled Shan state, which borders China to the north, Laos to the east and Thailand to the south.

According to a report in the government newspaper New Light of Myanmar, he visited healthcare units and local towns proclaiming that the country is moving toward democracy.

Elections, he said, are part of the generals' "seven-step road map" to ensuring sovereignty and independence under the current national borders and people should vote responsibly.

The visit to Shan is significant because the military has been struggling with several armed ethnic groups in the largely rural state that is around one-quarter of Myanmar's land area.

Some cease-fire agreements have been signed with the militias but the state could be the scene of clashes during an election if the government wishes to physically ensure that campaigning and elections take place, especially in areas controlled by the militias.