Suu Kyi's NLD Party Won't Run in Upcoming Elections

Elections in military-ruled Burma are planned for later this year, but one major political party is participating.

Burma's biggest opposition party, the National League for Democracy, or NLD, has announced it will not register for this year's election. That means Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's party will have no role in the military-led political process.

Senior party members made the decision six days after Suu Kyi said she would quote, "not dream" of entering if the decision was hers.

The comment was widely interpreted as a veiled instruction to party members as they prepared for a ballot on whether to run.

An NLD spokesman spoke about the party's decision.

[Nyan Win, Spokesman, National League for Democracy Party]: (male, Burmese)
"Because the electoral laws promulgated by the State Peace and Development Council do not provide any fairness to the NLD, all representatives attending today's meeting unanimously decided that the National League for Democracy will not register under these laws. The NLD demands that all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi be freed as soon as possible."

The NLD is most angered by the military junta's restrictive election laws, which bar current and former prisoners from taking part. Many NLD members are among the 2,100 political detainees in Burma, the most famous of whom is Suu Kyi.

The NLD party had won the last election in 1990 by a landslide, but was never allowed to rule.

The United States and the United Nations have said the election would not be credible if political prisoners could not take part.

Burma’s junta has kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for nearly 14 of the past 20 years.