Indonesia's Support to Myanmar on Reform Agenda

Indonesia will give support so that the reform agenda planned by the Mynmarese government could be realized, foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said in an official statement here on Saturday. He made the statement in connection with the planned general elections in Myanmar.

He said Indonesia along with the international community underlined the importance of general elections which are inclusive and open to foreign monitors. The Myanmarese government has committed to hold the general elections at the end of this year as part of efforts to implement the road map towards democracy.

The international community however has been worrying that the first general election in the last 20 years in that country would not run fairly and freely following the issuance of a new law on general elections that bans democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to participate in the event. The new general elections law regulates registration of political parties and bans convicts to be a member of an official party.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in March said the new law ran counter with the hope of the international community for a political process that involves all groups. He repeated his appeal for a wide political process that would produce a fair and transparent election, trusted by all Myanmarese people, involving Aung San Suu Kyi.

The National League for Democracy led by Suu Kyi has not announced if it would participate in the election expected to be held in October of November. The 64-year old opposition leader has served 14 out of 20 years under house arrest since the last general elections.

She has been barred from becoming a candidate based upon a new constitution passed in a referendum in 2008 stating that a person who marries a foreigner is not allowed to be chosen. Suu Kyi’s husband, Michael Aris is British who died in 1999. The Nobel laureate was sentenced to three years in jail in August last year after a US citizen visited her. The sentence was reduced to 18 months under house arrest by junta leader Than Shwe.