Myanmar jail threat to Suu Kyi party on poll boycott

YANGON, Sept 18,AFP Myanmar 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.

Although the National League for Democracy (NLD) — officially disbanded this week — was not named directly, the report in the New Light of Myanmar 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 November 7 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 kyats (1,000 dollars) or with both,” it said.

Suu Kyi, who has been detained for much of the two decades since the NLD won Myanmar’s last election, is due to be released just days after the November 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 that the commission has no authority to issue the ban.

It is planning to sue the government over its abolition as well as the unrecognised 1990 poll win.

A spokesman also said the party had not committed any breach of the 1988 political party registration law, under which it was formed, that 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.