US Urges Monitoring of Burma By-elections

WASHINGTON — The United States has urged Burma to allow local and international monitors at April 1 by-elections, seen as an important step in the country's democratic transition.

The party of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be contesting all 48 seats up for grabs. Free and fair conduct of the vote will be key in any US decision on easing tough economic and political sanctions.

Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, the top US diplomat specializing on human rights issues, said Thursday the results of the by-elections would not alter the balance of Burma’s military-dominated Parliament, but were a “way-station” in the democratic transition, leading up to fresh national elections in 2015.

He said the US has discussed with Burma’s government the need for monitoring the by-elections.

“We have had those discussions. We very much hope that the process will be open to both local monitors and to those coming from outside,” Posner told a seminar at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington.

The current Parliament was convened after 2010 elections that were boycotted by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) because it deemed the rules governing the vote as unfair. The government refused to allow independent monitoring of the election and there were reports of coercion of voters and discrimination against opposition parties. Voting was canceled in some ethnic minority areas.

The government of President Thein Sein has since amended the electoral rules, paving the way for the NLD and Suu Kyi herself to register for the April 1 vote for seats vacated by lawmakers who were appointed to the Cabinet or other posts.

Suu Kyi last week made a political trip to the southern city of Tavoy (also known as Dawei), attracting thousands of supporters. Such an appearance would have been unthinkable a year ago. But her party on Thursday said she had postponed a trip to the central city of Mandalay, because she could not obtain permission to hold a political gathering at a football stadium there.

However the vote turns out, the NLD will not be able to make major inroads into the military's vast parliamentary majority. But the result could signal whether it retains the popularity it enjoyed in the last national elections in 1990, when it won more than 80 percent of the seats nationwide. The military did not honor the result.

Under the current constitution, approved in a highly criticized 2008 referendum, the military is guaranteed a quarter of the 440 seats in the lower house, and 224 in the upper house. The main pro-military party won 80 percent of the remaining seats.

Assessing Burma’s reforms to date, Posner credited Thein Sein's government with changing course after years of repression and international isolation. Posner cited the releases of hundreds of political prisoners, the opening up of the political process, and the loosening of controls on media and labor unions.

But he said there are still hundreds of political prisoners, and violence has worsened in the ethnic conflict in the northern Kachin State, including reports of attacks on women and children.

“Those need to stop,” he said.