Zomi says:
General Ne Win was married to Yadana Nat Mai, a Swiss citizen, but he was
not unqualified to stand for election.
=====
ASEAN says Myanmar must have credible elections
Wed Feb 20, 2008 6:17pm IST
By Melanie Lee
SINGA****E (Reuters) - An election planned by Myanmar's generals must be
credible, the Association of South East Nations said on Wednesday, adding
the outcome would affect all members of the 10-nation group.
Myanmar's ruling generals earlier this month announced a referendum in May
on a new constitution, to be followed by an election in 2010. If held, the
poll would be the first since a 1990 election whose outcome the military
ignored.
"What we are concerned about is the credibility of the process,"
Singa****e's
Foreign Minister George Yeo said on Wednesday.
"There must be provisions for independent verification and many of us
expressed the view that Myanmar cannot ignore the international
dimension,"
he told re****ters after a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in the
city-state.
Yeo, speaking a day earlier, said opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi would
not be allowed to take part in the proposed elections because she had been
married to a foreigner.
In the new constitution, a Myanmar citizen who has a foreign husband or
who
has children who are not citizens of Myanmar will be disqualified, as it
was
in the 1974 constitution, Yeo said.
Suu Kyi was married to Briton Michael Aris, who died in 1999.
"The military have made it very clear that they don't think that Aung San
Suu Kyi should have some kind of role in the politics of Burma. So the
past
20 years really have been a process of finding ways to exclude her from
the
entire process," David Scott Mathieson, a Myanmar consultant for Human
Rights Watch, told Reuters Television in Thailand.
"So this constitution is rigged," he said.
ASEAN diplomats have said the group is grappling with a dilemma. Myanmar's
member****p to some is complicating its efforts to create an influential
bloc
in a globalised world.
But isolating the junta could drive Myanmar further into China's embrace
and
to ASEAN's disadvantage. ASEAN has instead opted for "engagement" with
Myanmar, calling on the junta to work with the United Nations towards
democracy and to release political detainees.
Myanmar's generals last held elections in 1990, but ignored them when Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent more than 12 of the past 18 years
under some form of detention.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-32053420080220
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