Junta bars Suu Kyi from polls

Rangoon, March 10: Burma’s military rulers have barred the pro-democracy leader, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, from running in upcoming elections and may force her own political party to expel her under a new election law unveiled on Wednesday.

The Political Parties Registration Law, published in official newspapers, prohibits anyone convicted by a court of law from joining a political party, making them ineligible to become a candidate.

It also instructs parties to expel members who are “not in conformity with the qualification to be members of a party,” a clause that could force Ms Suu Kyi’s expulsion. Parties that don’t register automatically cease to exist, the law says. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, was convicted in August 2009 of violating the terms of her house arrest by briefly sheltering an American who swam uninvited to her lakeside residence. She was sentenced to a new term of house arrest that is to end in November.

The sentence was seen as a way to keep Ms Suu Kyi locked up during the election campaign.