Week 3: 2010 Elections Watch (23-29 March)

By Altsean-Burma • March 31, 2010

Developments

The NLD announced it would not register as a political party to contest the upcoming elections. NLD spokesman Nyan Win said the party decided not to register because the SPDC election laws were “unfair and unjust.”
Burma’s Supreme Court refused to accept the NLD’s legal challenge to the SPDC election laws saying it did not have jurisdiction over the matter.
The SPDC Censorship Board told newspaper publishers that they can carry special election sections provided they don’t report on political parties that fail to register. Media sources reported that most newspapers had articles rejected by the SPDC Censorship Board because they touched on election-related issues.

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Reactions

UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon said that the election process so far had been “frustrating and disappointing” and that the “current electoral laws do not measure up to what is needed,” he said.
The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution which expressed “regret and concern” that the SPDC election laws did not meet the “expectations of the international community regarding what is needed for an inclusive political process.”
US State Department spokesman P J Crowley said that Washington was clearly “disappointed” with the SPDC election laws, as the laws “by no means does what Burma has to do in terms of opening up its political process and having meaningful dialogue with parties,.”
UK Ambassador to the UN Mark Lyall Grant condemned the SPDC election laws and said that the “instability that could be caused by a flawed electoral process is a threat to international peace and security.”
Kachin National Organization Chairman Bawmwang La Raw said there was “no earthly reason” to accept the upcoming elections. “I don’t think any party which contests the elections are well intentioned,” he added.

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This post is in: 2010 Elections