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YANGON : Myanmar will hold a referendum on a new constitution in May, the ruling military said Saturday, promising to then have multi-party elections in 2010.
The announcement on state television came amid mounting international pressure on Myanmar over its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in September, when the United Nations estimates at least 31 people were killed.
It also came nearly two decades after democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party comfortably won a nationwide vote which was then rejected by the military.
Last autumn's protests, led by Buddhist monks, were the biggest challenge to military rule in nearly 20 years.
"The referendum on the new constitution will be held in May 2008," said the government statement, read over state television. No exact date was announced.
"Multi-party democratic elections will be held in 2010, according to the new constitution," it added.
"It is suitable to change the military administration to a democratic, civil administrative system, as good fundamentals have been established," it said.
"The country's basic infrastructure has been built, although there is still more to do in striving for the welfare of the nation," it added.
Myanmar last held elections in 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide, but the ruling military has never recognised the result.
NLD spokesman Nyan Win said the party was surprised by the announcement, especially since no one has seen the final version of the constitution that the military plans to bring before voters.
"I am surprised that they set a date for an election," Nyan Win told AFP.
"We have to see the results of the referendum on the constitution. How can they know if it will be a success? It is still early to talk about an election."
The military organised the last elections in Myanmar after public frustrations at political repression and economic troubles erupted into protests in 1988.
Aung San Suu Kyi first took to the public stage during that uprising, which was far larger than the demonstrations last year.
The military responded by confining her to her home in 1989, but the newly formed NLD still won a landslide victory when the military held elections the following year.
Instead of recognising her victory, the military insisted on drafting a new constitution and convened a National Convention in 1993, which spent the next 14 years in fitful meetings laying out the guidelines for a new charter.
In the early stages, the NLD participated in the talks, but the party later boycotted the National Convention in protest at Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest.
The Nobel peace prize winner has spent a total of 12 years locked in her rambling lakeside home in Yangon, allowed little contact with the outside world.
The charter talks, held in secret by 1,000 delegates chosen by the regime, finally concluded on September 3, 2007, just weeks after anti-government demonstrations began appearing in Yangon in protest at an overnight hike in fuel prices.
By the end of September, the protests had snowballed into the largest anti-government demonstrations since 1988. The military responded with a deadly crackdown in which security forces opened fire on crowds, killing dozens.
The military's unexpected announcement late Saturday was its first significant gesture to Myanamr's pro-democracy forces since the protests.
The military has allowed a UN envoy to visit, and named a liaison officer to hold talks with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Her fifth and most recent meeting with the liaison officer was on January 30, when Aung San Suu Kyi had announced that she was "not satisfied" with the pace of the negotiations -- a pace that seems to have suddenly accelerated.
- AFP /ls
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