Myanmar's Suu Kyi denounces new election laws
Aung San Suu Kyi has described the new laws as as unjust and repressive
Yangon: Myanmar's military regime unveiled on Friday the last of its election laws, which detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has described as unjust and repressive.
The laws bar the Nobel Peace laureate from running for office or even voting in polls and greatly weaken her National League for Democracy. The date of the election has not been announced.
The fifth and last law, carried in state-owned newspapers Friday, governs elections to 14 regional parliaments. Details of the five laws have trickled out over the course of the week.
"Aung San Suu Kyi said she never expected such repressive laws would come out but said she's not disappointed," her party spokesman Nyan Win told reporters after meeting the 64-year-old democracy leader at her home Thursday.
"She said such challenges call for resolute responses and calls on the people and democratic forces to take unanimous action against such unfair laws," he said.
Nyan Win said he was not yet in a position to say how the party would respond. Her party has yet to decide whether it will participate in the elections. Political parties have 60 days from Monday to register.
It will be the first poll since 1990, when Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory. The junta ignored the results of that vote and has kept Suu Kyi jailed or under detention for 14 of the past 20 years.
This year's elections are part of the junta's "roadmap to democracy," which critics deride as a sham designed to cement the military's power.
A military-backed constitution was approved by a national referendum last May, but the opposition charges that the vote was unfair.
