RANGOON— A decision by Burma's military junta to bar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from upcoming elections drew sharp criticism from around the world, with one of the country's Southeast Asian neighbors Thursday calling it "a complete farce."
A new election law announced Wednesday prohibits anyone convicted of a crime — as Suu Kyi was in August — from being a member of a political party. That makes the detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate ineligible to become a candidate in elections scheduled for some time later this year.
Another law published Thursday in state-owned newspapers formally invalidated the country's last elections, held 20 years ago. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in those polls, but the junta ignored the results and has kept Suu Kyi jailed or under house arrest for 14 years since then.
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