NLD restrictions lifted

Myanmar opposition’s campaign activities no longer blocked

YANGON: Myanmar election authorities lifted restrictions on political campaigning in an unusually swift response to complaints by prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party.

The national league for democracy said earlier in the day that the restrictions risked making upcoming by-elections unfair.

The state Union Election Commission’s decision to lift all restrictions was unusual.

Bureaucratic wheels grind slowly even where there are no political hurdles in the country where an elected, nominally civilian government took office almost a year ago

What we want is fair play but the restrictions have increased lately. — NYAN WIN

after a half-century of military rule.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win had said the party was facing difficulty in getting permission to use public venues for its meetings ahead of the April 1 polls.

“What we want is fair play but the restrictions have increased lately. It is very difficult to say that the upcoming by-elections could be free and fair,” Nyan Win said.

Yesterday, however, he said the state Union Election Commission had informed the party that “all restrictions are lifted for the organisational activities.”

“There is now a flicker of hope,” Nyan Win commented.

Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is running for one of the 48 parliamentary seats being contested in April.

Her party overwhelmingly won a 1990 general election but the military refused to allow it to take power.

The NLD boycotted a 2010 general election, saying the rules were unfair. It agreed to rejoin electoral politics last year when the new militarybacked elected president, Thein Sein, began implementing democratic reforms.

The government has released political prisoners and amended some election laws among other changes, while arguing that Western political and economic sanctions imposed because of the repression under the past military regime should be lifted.

The US and other nations have specifically cited a fair election as a benchmark by which Thein Sein’s administration will be judged. — AP