Yangon (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Burmese President Thein Sein today opened a round table discussion with opposition leaders, including Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, military leaders and leaders of the nation's main ethnic groups.
The meeting, the first ever of its kind, was ordered by the head of state just a few days ahead of the official announcement of the upcoming elections to be held in the latter part of 2015, between the end of October and early November.
On the eve of the summit, US President Barack Obama has had a telephone conversation with both his counterpart Thein Sein, and with opposition leader Suu Kyi, expressing his hope that the vote of 2015 will be "credible" and "inclusive".
Today's meeting in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw focuses on three main pillars: peace,
national
reconciliation and political
reforms, particularly those that threaten to
undermine the constitutional
elections next year. Attended by the
president, two vice-presidents, the two Speakers of Parliament,
the head of the military, representatives of ethnic groups and political parties.
Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the main
opposition party, the National League
for Democracy (NLD), has frequently called for such meetings to
revive the process of reforms
in the country. According to critics
today's summit is just a facade to show participants at
the East Asia Summit that the
political dialogue "continues".
In
2010, Myanmar held its first general
elections in 20 years. However,
the NLD boycotted
the elections because it believed
them fundamentally unfair and anti-democratic. Those elections led to the establishment of a semi-civilian
government led by Thein Sein, a former general now considered
a reformer. 25% of the seats in Parliament are assigned by law, not by popular vote, to the military - in fact
- they have the power of veto
over any type of political and
institutional reform in the country.
In the 2012 elections, the NLD participated by presenting all its top leaders, including the Nobel Laureate who, on a wave of popular
support, won a parliamentary seat.
However, despite the great popularity of the "Lady"
she is banned from running for the office of President. Two highly
controversial constitutional norms have effectively barred her from the race for the most
important position in the country.
Other issues that remain unresolved include the plight of the
Rohingya, a Muslim minority considered
unlawful by the Burmese government and subject to violence and persecution by the Buddhist
majority, especially in the western state of Rakhine where they
are concentrated in vast members. At
least 100 thousand people have fled in the
past two years, since the beginning of
Buddhist-Muslim riots of 2012 that have caused the deaths of at least 200 people.