Share

Myanmar poll: NLD ‘rejects Muslim candidates’

“For the first time in decades, our people will have a real chance of bringing about real change”, said Ms Suu Kyi, wearing a traditional Burmese green dress with a pink scarf.

Advertisement

“If this is the case the election will be unfree and unfair”, he told AFP, referring to the juntaʼs term for the countryʼs managed political transition.

Under the current constitution Suu Kyi will not be allowed to become president even if her party wins a majority, as is widely expected, because she has two foreign sons.

However they’ve confronted growing discrimination since a military-dominated semi-civilian authorities changed a junta in 2011. “This is an opportunity that we can’t afford to let slip”, stated Suu Kyi.

The Nobel peace laureate’s comments come ahead of a meeting between Myanmar President Thein Sein and ethnic rebel groups on Wednesday in the capital Naypyitaw to discuss a draft of the long-discussed ceasefire proposal.

Aung San asked the world to “help us by observing what happens before the election, during the election and crucially, after the election”.

She expressed hope that the election be free and fair and the result of the election be respected by all parties concerned, stressing the importance of a smooth and tranquil transition through the election.

The NLD boycotted the next nationwide poll in 2010, which was won by the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging.

The USDP gained the final common election which was held beneath army rule in 2010 and extensively condemned as rigged in favour of the party, which incorporates remnants of the previous regime and its enterprise allies.

“How many times do we need approval?”

Ms. Suu Kyi has already started holding large rallies around the country, and the USDP’s ousted chairman, Shwe Mann, has also been campaigning in his hometown.

The NLD chief famous the historic second in a video messaged posted on the social gathering’s Fb web page on Tuesday morning to mark the beginning of the marketing campaign.

Near the NLD office in Yangon, taxi driver Htwe Han perused an array of party merchandise.

The poll will decide representatives of the bicameral parliament and regional chambers for 5-yr phrases.

Parliament will then vote on which of the three candidates can be president and the president will type the federal government.

But the NLD will be able to choose a presidential candidate to stand in her place if it wins enough seats. With few credible opinion polls in the impoverished country, that is unclear.

Its timidity in hard the anti-Muslim bias within the election course of has mirrored the silence of NLD leaders concerning the remedy of the Rohingyas, hundreds of whom have tried to flee discrimination by sea in Asia’s personal “boat individuals” disaster.

Her party took part in 2012 by-elections, winning 43 of the 44 seats it contested – including Suu Kyi’s first elected post as a member of parliament.

Advertisement

“We are going to aggressively target the constituencies with big-ticket candidates from the ruling camp”, said Win Htein, a senor NLD member who is coordinating its campaign.

Myanmar monk Wirathu whose anti Muslim campaign has stoked religious tensions in the Buddhist-majority nation is interviewed in a Mandalay monastery