The Philippine Online Chronicles

Due to a new election law released by the military junta of Myanmar (Burma), pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been effectively barred from running for public office in the upcoming elections.

The Political Parties Registration Law announced on Wednesday requires all political parties to register with an Election Committee. Anyone convicted of a crime, however, is prohibited from being a member of a party.

Chapter II, Article 4 (e) of the Political Parties Registration Law specifies that “[a] person convicted by a court and currently serving a jail term or the person in the process of a legal pursuit against the jail term for a review of it at a court are not eligible to found a political party.”

Because Suu Kyi was convicted last year, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate is ineligible to become a candidate of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, of which she is the general secretary.

The law also bars members of religious orders and civil servants from joining political parties.

In a report by Unfree Media Asia, the law may eventually force the iconic opposition figure to leave the NLD, as parties are also instructed to expel members who are "not in conformity with the qualification to be members of a party." Parties that fail to register automatically cease to exist, the law says.

The NLD must soon decide whether it will continue on as a legal party after 20 years of unsuccessful struggle against the military dictatorship. "We are facing a great dilemma," Nyan Win, the NLD spokesperson and the lawyer representing Suu Kyi, said. "We have to expel our own leader from the party or face dissolution of the party after May 7."

The Irrawaddy remarked that the election laws appear to have been meticulously framed to exclude Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

As things stand, Suu Kyi is already blocked from holding the offices of President or Vice President, as the 2008 Constitution prepared by the junta states that anyone whose spouse or children are citizens of a foreign country are ineligible for these positions. Suu Kyi was married to a British national, and her two sons, who live in the United Kingdom (UK), are British citizens.

The regime's prime minister, Gen. Thein Sein, said at a meeting in Shen State on Tuesday, "No Burmese citizen could be a stooge or an agent of an alien nation in disguise of a Myanmar [Burmese]."

The registration law drew fierce criticism, specially from the the UK and the United States. The international community has repeatedly said that Myanmar's elections would not be legitimate if Suu Kyi is not allowed to participate.

During an interview with The Associated Press, Philippine Secretary for Foreign Affairs Alberto Romulo said, "Unless they release Aung San Suu Kyi and allow her and her party to participate in elections, it's a complete farce and therefore contrary to their roadmap to democracy."

Another recent law formally invalidated the results of Myanmar's last elections, which were held 20 years ago.

In those polls, the NLD had won a landslide victory, but the junta ignored the results. Since then, it has kept Suu Kyi jailed or under house arrest for 14 years.

In August 2009, Suu Kyi was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest because she briefly sheltered an American, John Yettaw, who had swum uninvited to her lakeside residence. Yettaw, a diabetic, then spent two nights at her compound after complaining of leg cramps and exhaustion.

The visit earned Suu Kyi a sentence of 18 additional months of detention. According to The Daily Telegraph, the sentence was seen as a way to keep Suu Kyi locked up during the election campaign.

On Monday, the junta enacted five laws that laid down the rules for the elections, campaigning, and the conditions under which parties may participate. One has not yet been made public.

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