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YANGON : Myanmar's opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi said on Monday it would boycott polls expected later this year, after the country's military rulers introduced a controversial new election law.
The National League For Democracy decided at a party meeting to refuse to register for the first polls to be held in two decades, a move that would have forced it to oust its detained leader and recognise the government's constitution.
But the NLD now faces dissolution in less than six weeks for failing to register, according to the new legislation brought in earlier this month for the elections due to be held by the end of November.
"The National League for Democracy has decided not to register the party," party spokesman Nyan Win said after a meeting of more than 100 senior members at NLD headquarters in the economic hub Yangon.
Under the internationally-criticised election legislation, if the party had decided to sign up for the vote it would have been forced to part with Suu Kyi because she is serving a prison term.
The vote is part of the government's seven-step "Roadmap to Democracy", which also includes a controversial new constitution agreed in a 2008 referendum held days after a cyclone ravaged the country.
Mynmar's election legislation nullifies the result of the last polls held in 1990 that were won by the NLD by a landslide but never recognised by the government. If the party had registered it would have been forced to recognise that decision.
Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, said last week she would "never accept" her party registering because the laws are "unjust".
But she said the party should decide "democratically", according to Nyan Win, who is also Suu Kyi's lawyer. Ahead of the party decision, Nyan Win had signalled his personal opposition to signing up for the vote.
"If we register, it would mean the NLD is doing everything the junta asks it to do. The NLD is working for free democracy. So we cannot accept what the government is asking," Nyan Win added.
Myanmar political analyst and pro-democracy activist Win Min said the party - which Suu Kyi helped found in 1988 after a popular uprising against the military government - would now essentially disappear.
"The party, under its current name, might not officially exist after the May 6 deadline," Win Min said. "It was very hard for the NLD members to exclude her (Suu Kyi) because she is a very influential figure in the party and in the country," he said.
In all, 115 party representatives attended the meeting as dozens of rank-and-file members gathered outside amid tight security, some wearing white tops bearing the slogan: "We believe Aung San Suu Kyi".
"We have sacrificed our life for 20 years and finally we have to give up like this. So you can imagine how we feel in our hearts," said Nann Khin Htwe Mying, a senior NLD member who arrived for the talks from eastern Karen state.
The United States has led international criticism of the new election laws, saying they make a "mockery" of democracy. Critics dismiss the planned poll as a sham designed to entrench the power of the military which has ruled since 1962.
The elections are expected to be held in the last week of October or early November, according to a senior official.
Military chief Senior General Than Shwe warned Saturday against "divisive" and "slanderous" election campaigning as he presided over the country's final annual military parade ahead of the vote.
Suu Kyi is one of more than 2,000 political prisoners held in Myanmar, which remains under US and European sanctions over its human rights record.
- AFP/al
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