Obama says Suu Kyi election ban ‘doesn’t make sense’

US president Barack Obama yesterday stood side by side with Burma's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon yesterday and said the law barring her from becoming president "doesn't make much sense".

It was the clearest statement Mr Obama has made on Ms Suu Kyi’s political future, but he stopped short of explicitly urging that changes be made to allow her to run for the presidency.

Washington has pressed for more change in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the regime in 1989, where political and economic reforms launched two years ago seem to have stalled and taken the sheen off what was seen as a rare foreign policy achievement for Mr Obama.

The US has signalled its willingness to let the transition take shape and has avoided specific demands. Nevertheless, Mr Obama has told President Thein Sein the next election, next year, needs to be fair, inclusive and transparent.

Nobel laureate

“I don’t understand a provision that would bar someone from being president because of who their children are – that doesn’t make much sense to me,” Obama told reporters outside Ms Suu Kyi’s lakeside home in Rangoon without naming her.

Ms Suu Kyi, like Mr Obama a Nobel laureate, is barred from contesting next year’s election because her two sons are foreign nationals. “From the point of view of democracy, it is not right to discriminate against one particular person,” Ms Suu Kyi said.

Many believe the law was written with her in mind. She remains wildly popular and her party – which swept a 1990 vote that was ignored by the military – is expected to do well in next year’s election.

‘Bumpy patch’

Ms Suu Kyi denied that she had differences with the United States over the transition process in Burma.

“Our reform process is going through a bumpy patch,” she said. “But this bumpy patch is something we can negotiate with commitment and the help and understanding of our friends around the world.

She said: “When Burma becomes a fully functioning democracy in accordance with the will of the people, we will be able to say that among those friends who enabled us to get there, the United States was among the first.”

Burma began its emergence from international pariah status in 2011 when military leaders started reforms after nearly half a century in power and installed a quasi-civilian government.

But substantial power is still held by the military, and that needs to be dealt with as the country makes the transition to a full democracy, Mr Obama told a group of Burmese lawmakers at a meeting earlier on Thursday.

Mr Obama also called on Burma to end discrimination against Rohingya people. In his strongest comments on the persecuted Muslim minority, he urged the government to grant them equal rights.

– (Reuters)