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YANGON : The pro-democracy party of Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Wednesday they had failed in a bid to sue the military government for not recognising their 1990 election victory.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last polls held in Myanmar by a landslide, but instead of letting them govern, the junta put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and continued to rule with an iron fist.
"We went to the Supreme Court to sue the government, as they had failed in their responsibility to summon the people's parliament," NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP.
"But it was rejected, even through we went to the highest court."
The party said in a statement that their chairman Aung Shwe went to the Supreme Court on February 29 to make their case, but it was rejected the same day without a hearing.
They had argued that the junta's own election laws enacted in 1989 stated that an elected parliament should convene after the polls, and therefore the military regime had failed to abide by its own laws.
"The authorities had a responsibility to organise the people's parliament, with the representatives, in accordance with the law," the statement said.
Myanmar's generals on February 9 made a surprise announcement that they would bring the recently-completed constitution before the public for approval in May, setting the stage for elections in 2010 - the first in two decades.
But the regime said Aung San Suu Kyi - a Nobel peace laureate who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years - could not run.
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari will fly to Myanmar on Thursday to press the junta to make the process more inclusive, and Nyan Win said they hoped to meet with the senior diplomat.
"We are expecting to meet Mr Gambari during his visit. We are ready to meet him but we have not been informed of anything yet," he said.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962, and the current junta scrapped a 1974 charter when it seized power in 1988, crushing a pro-democracy uprising.
Two years later, the regime organised elections that the NLD won. The NLD has said that for Myanmar to truly achieve democracy, the military rulers must first respect their victory in those elections. - AFP/de
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