Updating All Day, Every Day
MYANMAR'S government has issued a public reassurance that the national election will take place as scheduled on November 8.
Original Report
BANGKOK: Myanmar election officials have suggested postponing November elections, just as the main opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to be heading for a historic victory.
But Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) opposed any postponement, saying it was aimed at thwarting its campaign.
Election commission official Tin Aye cited flooding in areas of the country in June and July as the reason for proposing the delay. He told representatives of 10 parties who were summoned to the capital, Naypyidaw, on Tuesday he was concerned the affected areas may not be ready to accommodate voters by the scheduled November 8 poll.
Win Htein, a senior member of Ms Suu Kyi's party, who was at the meeting, said only the NLD opposed a postponement, which was backed by the governing Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).
He said the floods were insufficient reason to postpone the vote that is seen as a key test of democratic progress after half a century of often brutal military rule.
More than 100 people were killed and one million others were critically affected by the floods, according to the United Nations.
The election commission said after the meeting a decision on whether to delay the election would be made within two days.
Analysts said delaying the vote would raise questions over the readiness of the powerful military to accept the results of the election, where the military-based USDP is expected to fare poorly.
Romain Caillaud, an analyst at FTI Consulting in Singapore, told Reuters a postponement, even for a short time, would "seriously shake confidence in the willingness of the incumbent elite to further the political transition".
Myanmar political analyst Yan Myo Thein told The New York Times the possible postponement showed that the election commission and president Thein Sein were "not sincere and trustworthy in politics."
"The ruling party and their allies fear the mounting strength of Aung San Suu Kyi," he said.
Ms Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero Aung San, last week threw down the gauntlet to the military, vowing to lead Myanmar from behind the scenes if her party wins.
The 70-year-old Nobel Prize winner has been prevented from contesting the presidency because of a clause in the constitution that bars candidates who have family members who are not Myanmar citizens. Her late husband and two sons are British.
Ms Suu Kyi has warned violence could be used to prevent voters casting their ballots on polling day. She urged voters to be "very, very brave".
Mr Thein Sein and the military have pledged to accept the election result but the NLD has expressed concern they may not be willing to relinquish power.
The NLD won a landslide election in 1990 but the military refused to accept the result and Ms Suu Kyi then spent 15 years under house arrest.
Mr Thein Sein, a former general, has been widely praised for overseeing a democratic transition after the military ceded power to a quasi-civilian government in 2011.
Tensions have been running high across the country as campaigning has got under way.
The USDP leadership split publicly in August and Ma Ba Tha, an organisation led by hardline nationalist monks, has sharply criticised the NLD, stoking religious tensions.
