UN Envoy to Burma to Discuss Planned Elections

The UN special envoy to Burma said Thursday he hoped to visit the country in early March for talks that will include the military government’s decision to bar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from contesting planned elections.

Ibrahim Gambari made the comments in the Indonesian capital, his latest stop in a tour of Asian countries seeking their help in pressing for democratic reform in military-ruled Burma.

The UN special envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari speaks to the press after meeting Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda in Jakarta on Thursday. (Photo: AFP)

Earlier this month the military regime said it will hold a May referendum on a constitution written under military guidance, and will conduct multiparty elections by 2010—the first specific dates for steps in an earlier-announced "roadmap to democracy."

The plans have been widely criticized for failing to include any input from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy.

Under the plans, Suu Kyi would not be allowed to contest the vote because she once was married to a foreign citizen—her late British husband, Michael Aris—and enjoyed the privileges of a foreign national.

"This is one of the issues I intend to discuss with the authorities in Myanmar [Burma],” Gambari told reporters. "They are in the process of inviting me to return to Myanmar, hopefully in the first week of March."

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries "still had hopes" Suu Kyi would be allowed to run in the elections. He did not elaborate.

Suu Kyi's party won general elections in 1990, but the junta did not allow it to take power. She has been under house arrest or in prison for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

The United States on Wednesday criticized the junta’s decision to ban Suu Kyi from running in election.

"That is hardly the definition of free and fair elections," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "The junta needs to start from scratch with a real constitution that actually passes the laugh test."

He spoke in Ghana where President George W. Bush is traveling.

A Burmese government panel on Tuesday completed writing the draft of a new constitution after more than two months of work. The text was not made public.