Reuters - Friday, April 9.HANOI, April 9 - Southeast Asian leaders have urged Myanmar's ruling junta to hold fair elections that include all parties, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said on Friday.
Dung said he conveyed that message on a visit to Myanmar days before the leaders of Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, met in Hanoi on Thursday and Friday for an annual summit.
"I, myself, as the chair of ASEAN, also forwarded to the government and people of Myanmar ASEAN's message; that is, we hope to see Myanmar implementing effectively the roadmap for democratisation, for peace and national concord," Dung told a news conference through a translator.
"The election should be fair, democratic, with the participation of all parties, and this will help ... stabilise the country and focus resources for development."
Dung's remarks were unusually blunt for an ASEAN summit, and indicative of the concern some members have expressed that Myanmar's intransigence is hurting the group's credibility when it is trying to turn itself into a regional bloc.
Myanmar's leaders unveiled widely criticised election laws recently that would bar political detainees, including opposition figurehead Aung San Suu Ky, from running.
Her National League for Democracy, which won the last election in 1990 by a landslide but was denied power by the army, is boycotting this one. That move could make it difficult for the junta to portray the polls as free, fair, inclusive and credible.
It was unclear if the leaders of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam reiterated their stance on the polls during the summit, attended by Myanmar's Prime Minister Thein Sein.
Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva cancelled his trip to Hanoi due to mass street protests in the Thai capital.
Dung said Thein Sein briefed the leaders on the election plans. "We reaffirmed that we are ready to support Myanmar if it so requests, and it is on the basis of the ASEAN charter".
ASEAN foreign ministers grilled their Myanmar counterpart about the election at an informal dinner on Wednesday.
The junta has yet to publicly reveal the election date.
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