ASEAN urges Myanmar to ensure its elections later this year ‘inclusive,’ free and fair

SE Asian leaders urges credible Myanmar elections

HANOI, Vietnam — Southeast Asian leaders urged Myanmar’s isolated military regime Friday to hold “inclusive” elections amid controversy over planned polls the opposition has vowed to boycott and denounced as designed to extend the junta’s rule.

The 16th annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations wrapped up Friday in the Vietnamese capital with a pledge to enhance economic cooperation among the organization’s 10 members.

Myanmar’s military junta plans to call elections sometime this year, but under the election laws, detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is forbidden from participating. Her party, the National League for Democracy, is boycotting the polls — the first in two decades, potentially undermining the credibility of the outcome.

The opposition won the 1990 elections, but the military refused to allow it to take power and has since tightly controlled political expression, jailing political activists — including Suu Kyi for 14 of the last 20 years — and quelling mass protests.

ASEAN leaders’ 13-page formal statement at the summit’s end contained only a few lines about Myanmar.

“We underscored the importance of national reconciliation in Myanmar and the holding of the general election in a free, fair and inclusive manner, thus contributing to Myanmar’s stability and development,” the statement said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the summit Friday morning, Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said it was important for Myanmar to make the transition to democracy.

“We want very much to see an election that is going to obtain international recognition and credibility,” he said.

Leaders from the 10 ASEAN nations represent widely diverging political systems — ranging from democracies to communism to a military junta — and generally refrain from commenting on one another’s political affairs.

“The elections should be free and democratic with the participation of all parties,” said Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who chaired the regional summit.

Representing his single-party communist state, Dung recently visited Myanmar to promote Vietnamese trade and investment there. He said he conveyed ASEAN’s position on the elections to Prime Minister Thein Sein at that time.

Other leaders at the summit said that they needed to engage Myanmar, not isolate it.

“We are not in a position to punish Myanmar,” said Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo. “If China and India remain engaged with Myanmar, then we have to.”

The summit took place amid an escalating political crisis in Thailand that forced Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to declare a state of emergency and cancel his trip to Hanoi. Thailand’s “Red Shirt” protesters, who briefly occupied parliament this week, are generally supporters of former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a 2006 coup, and want Abhisit to resign and call new elections.

Dung made no reference to Thailand’s troubles during his post-summit news conference.

Dung said the ASEAN leaders had agreed to intensify their economic cooperation, with the goal of establishing a European-style economic community by 2015 and promoting development across the region.

ASEAN’s foreign ministers predict that economic growth across the region could reach 5.5 percent this year and they said they would take steps to ensure financial stability.

The leaders issued a statement saying the global economy shows signs of recovery, although it would be slow.

(This version CORRECTS title of George Yeo in graf 13 as Singaporean foreign minister, not Indonesian prime minister.)