Malaysia is this year’s rotating chair of ASEAN, long derided by critics as a toothless talking shop, and calls at previous summits and meetings for an end to fighting have yielded little effect.
Myanmar’s vote will be blocked in huge enclaves of the country captured by an array of pro-democracy guerillas and long-active ethnic minority armies which have found common cause fighting the junta.
Naypyidaw has already conceded elections will not take place in one in seven national parliament constituencies, many of them active war zones, while martial law remains in place in one in five townships.
Ollongren called on all parties in Myanmar to stop the violence, “that they change course, that they enter into a true dialogue with all parties concerned”.
“And from there on, transition to peace and start building a country where you will have free and fair elections in the future,” she said.
The planned vote was “not free and fair by the way it is being organised,” Ollongren said.
“That means that we cannot recognise these as real elections, as fair.”
“Therefore, based on these criteria, we will not send observers to something that we don’t recognise as an election,” she said.
Source: CNA
