THE New Light of Myanmar newspaper was just a few years ago a bombastic mouthpiece for a brutal military junta, describing democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a person "obsessed by lust and superstition."

Western media outlets like the BBC were "killer broadcasts" that "sowed hatred" and readers were exhorted to "crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy."

But after getting a makeover last year the Yangon-based newspaper once known by its critics as the "New Lies of Myanmar" has now attacked Myanmar's elite rulers, describing them in an editorial as "fuddy-duddy, hoity-toity, jiggery-pokery" persons who are the impediments to progress and harmony in society.

In the country also known as Burma that began opening to the world after decades of seclusion in 2011 - but where journalists are still harassed and sometimes jailed - the newspaper has taken a courageous stand against what it called disgusting "hoity-toity" persons who "treat simple or ordinary people arrogantly and selfishly in society."

"The hoity-toity persons undertaking public service or public affairs behave as if they are benefactors of the general public and they do despise the public concerned," the editorial said.

"Naturally, this type of bad disposition can be found in the minds of aristocrats or despots or corrupt officials," it said.

"Reciprocally, the public concerned express disgust at the hoity-toity administrators . . . thus relations between the general public and the hoity-toity administrators becomes discordant."

Penned under the name Tommy Pauk, the editorial said that while Myanmar's customs should not be neglected, fuddy-duddies "grip their old-fashioned ideas and principles firmly" while refusing to compromise or understand the wish or aspiration of youths.

"They are always stubborn to work together with youths for making social progress and political reform," it said.

"They do not wish to harmonise with socio-economic evolution but try to disrupt the potential progress."

The editorial took particular aim at politicians in a parliament dominated by military officers who are blocking Ms Suu Kyi, a Noble laureate and the country's most popular figure, from becoming president at elections scheduled later this year.

"The act of jiggery-pokery can be seen or heard in the political fields - it is a dirty trick among the politicians," it said.

"The scoundrels usually try to take [the] shelter of politics as their last refuge."

Referring to elections, the editorial said the act of jiggery-pokery is intended to gain some unjust or unfair winning over others.

"Since having no ability or no qualification or no public support to compete or participate in [the] contest, they use this technique to trick [ . . . ] the contestants in order to convince the general public that the race is free and fair," the editorial said.

Summing up, the newspaper said the "aforesaid persons are the ones who impede or hinder the progress and harmony in certain society as they are being selfish, stubborn, pessimistic and crooked."

Created in 1993 by the former junta to publish Orwellian propaganda, The New Light of Myanmar was for years the country's only English-language daily.

But it was spun off by the state in 2013, with a Myanmar company taking a 49 percent stake, as the country's quasi-civilian government moved to allow private daily newspapers.

Media watchdog organisations now describe Myanmar's newspapers as freer than their counterparts in Malaysia, Laos and Vietnam and perhaps even Thailand, where a free media flourished for years but now is subjected to censorship imposed under martial law following a military take-over in May last year.