The Burmese junta is using the 2010 elections to smother the opposition and its democratic activities to cement and legitimize military rule in the guise of elections and democracy, said Dr Sein Win, Prime Minister of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma in exile.
“We will not accept it, and our struggle for democracy in Burma might be long,” he said.
Dr Sein Win said this at a function on March 13 at Berkeley, California in the United States, to mark Burma's Human Rights Day.
March 13 has been earmarked as Burma's Human Rights Day by activists when a Rangoon Institute of Technology student Phone Maw was brutally killed in 1988 by Burmese soldiers, which eventually led to a nationwide uprising against military rule.
“This year’s elections, in my opinion, will not usher in any change in Burma,” Dr Sein Win said. He added that all the democratic alliances believe the constitution will not lead to any kind of democracy.
Controversy has erupted between the regime and opposition political parties over the new electoral laws and the 2008 constitution. For instance, the President must be from a military background and a registered party has to support and defend the 2008 constitution.
Nyunt Than, the President of the San Francisco-based NGO the Burmese American Democratic Alliance, said the regime had now closed all doors to possible negotiation and the process of democratization.
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“We Burmese people will never give up, even though it seems hopeless,” Nyunt Than said.
“Democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2000 political prisoners are our role models, and the oppressive regime will be defeated,” he said.
Toe Lwin, a former political prisoner now living in the United States told Mizzima that the election laws were a clear example of lawlessness by the junta in ensuring that there was no effective opposition.
“The election laws are designed to simply crush opposition parties,” Toe Lwin said.
The 2008 constitution does not protect the rights of the people, and the vicious circle of arbitrary arrests and torture will continue, he said.
