Myanmar president vows 'free and fair' elections
YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's president Thursday reaffirmed his vow to hold a "free and fair" election after the country set the date for what many hope will be the most democratic vote in a generation for the former junta-run nation.
Millions will cast their votes in historic general elections on November 8 that are likely to be the first time in 25 years that Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition party have taken part in a nationwide poll.
"As the first civilian government in many years, we have a responsibility and we promise to try our best to ensure that the upcoming general election is clean, free and fair," said President Thein Sein, in a national radio address a day after the poll date was confirmed.
The Myanmar leader, a former general, has been cheered by the international community for unleashing political and economic reforms that have cracked open the country's isolation, sparking the end of most Western sanctions.
But as elections loom, fears have grown that the nation, which was ruled by the military for nearly half a century, might be back-pedalling on its democratic transition.
Suu Kyi, who is barred from becoming president by the junta-drafted constitution, has failed in her efforts to change the charter, locking horns with the military's formidable 25 per cent parliamentary voting bloc and effective amendment veto.
The 70-year-old Nobel laureate has yet to formally announce participation in the polls, although her National League for Democracy (NLD) party says it has already prepared a long-awaited policy platform.
Myanmar's main opposition is expected to make sweeping gains at the elections.
It won 1990 polls by a landslide but was not allowed to take power by military rulers who kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 years.
She remained locked up during the country's last general elections in 2010, which were won by Thein Sein's Union Solidarity and Development Party -- manufactured by the former junta and dominated by retired generals -- amid an NLD boycott and widespread accusations of cheating.
Observers now hope the November elections will be the freest in Myanmar's recent history, with its Union Election Commission (UEC) welcoming a slew of foreign observers.
The United States is among several countries providing support for the polls.
State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said "a credible parliamentary election is an important step" in response to the election date announcement Wednesday.
But the NLD has warned that voter lists are riddled with errors and has launched house-to-house campaigns to encourage people to check their details.
The UEC has admitted problems computerising some 30 million names on electoral lists for the first time, but it says voters can still make corrections.
Chronology of key recent political events in the nation:
2010
November 7: Myanmar's junta holds its first elections for 20 years in polls boycotted by Suu Kyi's party and denounced as a sham by the West. A party backed by the army and dominated by retired generals wins an overwhelming majority.
November 13: Suu Kyi is released from seven straight years of house arrest.
2011
January 31: Parliament meets for the first time, with a quarter of the seats reserved for the army.
March 30: Former general Thein Sein becomes president as the junta is dissolved and Senior General Than Shwe, in power since 1992, retires.
August 19: Suu Kyi and Thein Sein hold landmark talks in the capital Naypyidaw.
October 12: Around 200 political prisoners are released as part of a mass amnesty.
November 19: Peace talks begin between the government and armed ethnic minority rebels.
November 30: Hillary Clinton visits Myanmar, the first trip by a US secretary of state to the nation for more than 50 years.
2012
January 5: Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party receives formal approval to contest April 1 by-elections.
April 1: Suu Kyi wins her first bid for a seat in parliament, hailing it as a "victory of the people" as her party seizes 43 of the 44 seats it contested. Two other party MPs later defected to the NLD, bringing their total number in parliament to 45.
April 13: Suu Kyi and British Prime Minister David Cameron issue a joint call for the suspension of sanctions, with the US, EU, Norway and Australia among those to later announce easing of restrictions.
May 2: Suu Kyi sworn in as a member of parliament in Naypyidaw.
June: Violent unrest sweeps across Rakhine state between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. Religious tensions have surged in the country since then, leaving more than 200 people dead and 140,000 in displacement camps.
November 19: Barack Obama arrives in Myanmar for the first visit by a serving US president in a trip aimed at encouraging reforms.
2013
May 21: Thein Sein arrives in Washington for talks with Obama, the first Myanmar leader to visit the White House in nearly half a century.
2014
January: Myanmar begins its first international political role in decades, taking the year-long chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
August 6: The NLD says around five million people have signed its petition calling for the removal of the military's effective veto on changes to the country's constitution. The junta-era charter bars Suu Kyi from becoming president, as it blocks anyone whose spouse or children are overseas citizens from leading the country. Her sons are British.
November 12: Obama makes his second visit to Myanmar, urges "free, fair and inclusive" elections.
2015
10 March: Police arrest scores of protesters calling for education reform in a violent crackdown on their rally, raising fears of a return to junta-era tactics. A trial of the activists is ongoing.
30 March: Myanmar agrees on a draft national ceasefire deal with armed rebel groups which is later described by the UN as a "historic" achievement. The peace process has since showed signs of serious foundering.
10 June: Suu Kyi arrives in China for a debut visit.
25 June: Parliament votes against changing the military's effective veto on changes to the constitution.
8 July: Myanmar announces the date for a historic general election to be held on November 8.
