Myanmar Confident of Free and Fair Elections, Minister Says
January 25, 2012, 11:21 AM ESTBy Bibhudatta Pradhan and Daniel Ten Kate
(Updates with minister’s comments in third paragraph.)
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar’s government is confident that April 1 by-elections will be “free and fair” as demanded by Western countries that have imposed sanctions on the Southeast Asian nation, Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said.
Democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi’s party will contest the special vote for 48 seats in the 664-seat parliament, the first time it is participating in an election since winning 1990 polls that were ignored by the military. Her National League for Democracy boycotted a 2010 election that ended more than five decades of army rule.
“We are confident that we will be able to hold the upcoming by-election free and fair as in the last nationwide general elections,” Wunna Maung Lwin said in a speech today in New Delhi, where he was on a four-day visit. “The reform process that we have started is irreversible. There will be no turning back or derailment in the road to democracy.”
U.S. and European Union policy makers are looking to the April 1 ballot as a test to determine whether to lift sanctions in place for more than two decades. The EU this week ended travel restrictions on President Thein Sein and other senior leaders after he released hundreds of dissidents, eased media restrictions and sought peace with ethnic groups.
The government plans to continue releasing political prisoners “as and when appropriate taking into account public security, peace, stability and the interest of the people and the state,” Wunna Maung Lwin said today.
U.S. Sanctions
Hillary Clinton, who last month made the first trip to Myanmar by a secretary of state since 1955, moved to upgrade diplomatic relations after hundreds of prisoners were freed on Jan. 13. The process of easing U.S. sanctions in place since 1988 should begin after an assessment of the April 1 by- elections, Senator John McCain said during a visit to Myanmar on Jan. 22.
The U.S., Canada and the U.K. condemned the 2010 elections, with President Barack Obama saying they “were neither free nor free.” In last night’s State of the Union address, Obama said “a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope,” referring to the country by its former name.
U.S. sanctions ban imports, restrict money transfers, curb aid money, freeze assets and target jewelry with gemstones originating in Myanmar. The EU has lighter restrictions, including a ban on weapons sales and imports of minerals.
The sanctions have left Myanmar dependent on neighbors India, China and Thailand, which have poured more than $25 billion into ports, power plants, and oil and gas pipelines. India last year approved plans for Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and GAIL India Ltd. to invest $1.3 billion in a natural gas project.
--With assistance from Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok. Editors: Mark Williams, John Brinsley
To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net
