Too early for decision on Myanmar election, says Suu Kyi

YANGON (AFP) – Detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi believes it is
too early for her party to decide whether to take part in Myanmar's
national elections this year, her lawyer said Tuesday.

Nyan Win, who is also the spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD), said the Nobel Peace Laureate had told him that "this
is not the time to decide."

"Daw Suu said we cannot say at this moment whether to participate in
the election... The main reason she gave is the lack of freedom of
information," Nyan Win said, using a term of respect for Suu Kyi.

"Daw Suu said freedom of information, freedom of expression, free and
fair elections are important needs. So no decision can be made without
these things," he added.

Myanmar's ruling junta has promised polls for this year as part of
their so-called seven-step Roadmap to Democracy, but no date has yet
been set and critics say the plans are simply to entrench the
generals' power.

The elections, which analysts predict will take place in October or
November, would be the first held since 1990, when the NLD won by a
landslide but was never allowed to take power.

The government claims a new constitution, agreed in a referendum held
in May 2008 in the wake of a devastating cyclone that killed up to
138,000 people in Myanmar, nullifies the result of those earlier
polls.

The new charter bans Suu Kyi from holding elected office, while
reserving a quarter of the seats in parliament for serving soldiers.

Suu Kyi has spent most of the last two decades under house arrest,
which was extended by 18 months last August when she was held partly
responsible for a bizarre incident in which an American man swam to
her lakeside home uninvited.

She is currently appealing against her latest conviction.