Burma’s ex-leader to be tried in election fraud case
BANGKOK — Burma’s state election commission announced that it is prosecuting the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and 15 other senior political figures over allegations of fraud in last November’s general election.
The announcement was published Tuesday in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper and other official media.
Allegations of widespread electoral fraud were the main reason cited by the military for its Feb. 1 seizure of power that toppled Suu Kyi’s government.
Her National League for Democracy party was about to begin a second five-year term in office after its landslide victory in the polls. The army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party suffered unexpectedly heavy losses.
Independent observers, such as the Asian Network for Free Elections, found no evidence of substantive irregularities in the polls, though they criticized some aspects.
The action by the Union Election Commission could potentially result in Suu Kyi’s party being dissolved and unable to participate in a new election the military has promised will take place within two years of its takeover.
In May, the military-appointed new head of the election commission said his agency would consider dissolving Suu Kyi’s former governing party and have its leaders charged with treason. Commission Chairman Thein Soe said an investigation had determined that the party had worked illegally with the government to give itself an advantage at the polls.
After taking power, the military dismissed the members of the election commission and appointed new ones. It also detained members of the old commission, and, according to reports in independent Myanmar media, pressured them to state there had been election fraud.
The new commission declared last year’s election’s results invalid.
The new notice from the commission said Suu Kyi, former President Win Myint, other leading figures in her party and the commission’s former chairman were “involved in electoral processes, election fraud and lawless actions” related to the polls.
Suu Kyi is already on trial or charged in about a dozen criminal cases in which a conviction would almost certainly bar her from running for office again.