Myanmar polls 'devoid of credibility': US

(AFP) – Mar 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — The United States hit out Wednesday at Myanmar's military junta for excluding political prisoners from taking part in upcoming elections, saying the polls were now "devoid of credibility."

Under the new election laws unveiled Wednesday, Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi faces exclusion from her own party and is barred from standing in the polls later this year.

"The political party registration law makes a mockery of the democratic process and ensures the upcoming election will be devoid of credibility," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

"We are deeply disappointed with the political party law which excludes all of Burma's (Myanmar's) 2,000 political prisoners from political participation," Crowley said. "This is step in the wrong direction."

Crowley said that President Barack Obama's administration still intended to pursue its new policy of political engagement with the regime in Myanmar, but was pessimistic about its chances of success.

"If Burma is to advance, it is going to have to change its political process, make it more inclusive," he said, but added it "doesn't appear that Burma is prepared right now to open up its political process."

On a visit to Malaysia, US envoy Kurt Campbell said: "I think it would be fair to say what we have seen so far is disappointing and regrettable."

Campbell reiterated calls for the release of Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years, ever since the military junta annulled 1990 elections which her National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.

The NLD has yet to announce whether it will take part in the polls promised by the junta, which are expected in October or November although the government has still not set a date.

Critics have dismissed the polls as a sham aimed at legitimizing the military's nearly five-decade grip on power and giving the appearance of democratic reform in the face of international sanctions.

Suu Kyi was already barred from standing as a candidate under a new constitution approved in a 2008 referendum that stipulates that those married to foreigners are ineligible. Her husband, British academic Michael Aris, died in 1999.