Myanmar democracy activists allowed to form new party

kaiJuly 9, 20105min943
AFP

အင်တာနက်ထဲ…ဒီသတင်းတွေ့လိုက်တာမို ့တင်လိုက်တာပါ။ အောက်မှာ မူရင်းသတင်းဖတ်နိုင်ပါတယ်။
ဒီသတင်း တခြားဘယ်မှာမှ မတွေ့သေးတာမို ့..လည်းဖြစ်ပါတယ်။

၁၉၉ဝ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲတုန်းကလည်း ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်က (အချိန်နီးလာမှ)ဆုံးဖြတ်ပြီး အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ ့ချုပ်အနေနဲ့ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဝင်ပြိုင် အနိုင်ရခဲ့တာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ NDF ကိုနိုင်ငံခြားအစိုးရများက အသိအမှတ်ပြု၊မပြုကတော့ စောင့်ကြည့်ရမယ်ဖြစ်ပါကြောင်း..။


Myanmar democracy activists allowed to form new party

(AFP) – 5 hours ago

YANGON — Former members of Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s disbanded National League for Democracy received permission Friday to run in rare elections, amid signs of a rift within the opposition.

The activists have been granted permission to create a new party, the National Democratic Force (NDF), to stand in the military-ruled country’s first polls in two decades later this year, according to state TV and radio.

“It’s a victory for the people,” said Khin Maung Swe, one of the leaders of the new party.

“I’m glad for the people because we can officially strive for democracy,” he told AFP by telephone.

The NLD refused to meet a May 6 deadline to re-register — a move that would have forced it to expel Suu Kyi — and opted to boycott the vote, which critics say is a sham designed to legitimise the junta’s half-century grip on power.

There have been signs of friction between older hardline opposition figures and younger more moderate figures who opposed the boycott decision.

Long-time NLD spokesman Nyan Win, who is also Suu Kyi’s lawyer, said he had “nothing to say” about the NDF’s participation in the vote.

“It’s their own decision. We have to see what they will really do. The government also recently said it was working for democracy,” Nyan Win told AFP.

The NLD, which was founded in 1988 after a popular uprising against the junta that left thousands dead, won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the military rulers never allowed it to take office.

Suu Kyi has spent much of the past 20 years in jail or house arrest.

Under election legislation unveiled in March, anyone serving a prison term is banned from being a member of a political party and parties that fail to obey the rule will be abolished.

In a sign of growing discord within the opposition, former top NLD members have accused the NDF of copying their symbol of a bamboo hat and recently lodged a complaint with the election commission about its use of the image.

Khin Maung Swe said the NDF would not remove the hat from its official seal.

“Our symbol is a golden bamboo hat and two stars. As we were allowed to be a registered political party, we will officially form our central committee in the coming week,” he said.

So far 38 political parties out of 43 which applied to be recognised have been given permission to register ahead of the elections.

Suu Kyi had her incarceration lengthened by 18 months in August last year after being convicted over a bizarre incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside home, and there are fears her detention may be extended again.

Her dedication to non-violence in pressing for change earned her a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and placed her — along with Nelson Mandela — among the world’s foremost voices against tyranny.

The woman known in Myanmar simply as “The Lady” remains the most powerful symbol of freedom in a country where the army rules with an iron fist.

Last month she marked her 65th birthday under house arrest at her lakeside mansion in Yangon, where she lives with two female assistants, cut off from the outside world without telephone or Internet access.

Foreign governments have urged the Myanmar military regime — which faces strict Western sanctions because of its human rights record — to take steps to ensure the vote is free, fair and credible.

In April Myanmar’s prime minister and some 22 other ministers retired from their military posts Monday, in a move seen as converting the leadership to civilian form ahead of elections due this year.

Myanmar’s leader is the head of the ruling junta, Senior General Than Shwe.

3 comments

  • Foreign Resident

    July 9, 2010 at 8:51 pm

    Dear Kai,

    This article doesn’t mean Daw Aung San Su Kyi is legitimate to participate in upcoming Election.
    Simple way,
    ” Daw Aung San Su Kyi still not allowed ( cannot ) in 2010 Election ”

    This article means only faction depart from NLD ( Not NLD ) was allowed.

    Thanks.

    • kai

      July 9, 2010 at 9:23 pm

      ကျနော်မှတ်ချက်ရေးလိုက်တာ.. ၁၉၉ဝ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဝင်တာနဲ့ ရောသွားတာမို့ ..
      ၂၀၁ဝရွေးကောက်ပွဲကို အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ့ချုပ်အနေနဲ့ ဝင်ပြိုင်နိုင်တော့မဲ့သဘော ဖြစ်သွားရင်တောင်းပန်ပါတယ်။
      အဓိကဆိုလိုချင်တာက ကွင်းခတ်ထားတဲ့ (အချိန်နီးလာမှ) ဆိုတာကိုပါ။
      အချိန်လည်း တော်တော်နီးနေပြီဖြစ်တဲ့အတွက် အလှည့်အပြောင်းတွေကို သေသေချာချာစောင့်ကြည့်နေဖို့ပါပဲ။
      ပြည်ပရောက်မြန်မာတွေ ဘယ်လိုတုံ့ပြန်ကြမလဲ ဆိုတာကလည်း စိတ်ဝင်စားစရာပါ။

      ဒီသတင်းပါ ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်ခွင့်ပြုချက်ကြောင့် လုပ်ဖေါ်ကိုင်ဖက်အချင်းချင်း ခမောက်ကိစ်စနဲ့ ထိပ်တိုက်တွေ့နေတာတော့ ရပ်သွားမယ်လို့မျှော်လင့်ပါတယ်။

  • timothy

    July 9, 2010 at 10:40 pm

    Than Shwe had allowed participation of NDF in his planned slavery of Burma under Military Machinery. He had successfully duped some section of the West and people inside Burma. Than Shwe had planned division of NLD by dirty trick. Khin Mg Swe and friends fell into the trap directly by feeling wonderful when acceptance news came to their knowledge. It is happy ending for Than Shwe to accept Khin Mg Swe as servant of Military. Than Shwe had successfully divided the NLD into 2 factions. I am amazed to see the seemingly naive Khin Mg Swe and foreign media for showing happiness towards Than Shwe`s generous acceptance of NDF. They portrait it as legitimacy of Than Shwe`s election. The more division in Burmese democrats, the happier Than Shwe will be and the closer the chance Burma is going into dark age of complete militarisation. Burmese should be united against the common enemy, Than Shwe. Boycott the election should be theme of the town, cities and country sides of Burma. I am very encouraged to hear that some students are distributing leaflets in road sections of Rangoon telling the people to boycott the election and support the formation of Student Union. All people in Burma need to do is to boycott the election. Zero percent vote in election will bring Than Shwe to his knee. Soldiers will come out from barracks to join the people if we achieve zero voting. People power is possible with this illegal election. Each and everyone in Burma got duty to block Than Shwe`s plan of forced militarization of Burma.United. I hope we all see the danger of Burma slipping into age of Darkness

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