SCMP-10 elected MPs may have held p

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South China Morning Post

Thursday  September 17  1998

 
10 elected MPs may have held parliament session 



ASSOCIATED PRESS in Rangoon 
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and nine senior members of her
political party have formed a committee representing arrested MPs and have
adopted resolutions in their names.



The move appeared to be an attempt to hold a session of the 459-member
parliament with only 10 people.



Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) has been saying
for several weeks that it would convene the parliament elected in 1990, in
which it won 82 per cent of the seats. The military has refused to
recognise the result of that election. To prevent the NLD from convening
the assembly, the military has arrested 783 opposition members, including
194 elected representatives.



The new committee claimed it had the mandate of the arrested lawmakers.



"The committee to represent the elected representatives of the 1990
multi-party democracy general elections was formed with the mandate of the
251 NLD representatives elect out of the 459 surviving candidates of the
1990 election," the NLD said in a statement.



The opposition has said that 181 other NLD lawmakers have either died, been
imprisoned, driven into exile, stripped of their parliamentary status by
the military-controlled election commission or been pressured into
resigning by the authorities.



NLD Vice-Chairman Tin Oo, a member of the committee, said it would reveal
what resolutions it had adopted today. He was vague in answering whether
the committee constituted parliament.



Also on the committee are Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize
winner, NLD chairman Aung Shwe and Aye Tha Aung, who is representing ethnic
parties whose leaders have been arrested.



Neither Ms Aung San Suu Kyi nor Mr Tin Oo ran in the 1990 elections because
they were under arrest by the military government.