Myanmar seen barring Suu Kyi from 2010 polls

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed to take part in elections proposed by the country's military leaders in 2010 because she had been married to a foreigner, the Straits Times reported on Wednesday.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said his Myanmar counterpart told a regional meeting on Tuesday that the new constitution barred Suu Kyi from the polls because of her marriage to Briton Michael Aris, who died in 1999, and because their children held foreign passports, the newspaper said.

Yeo said foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) told Myanmar's representative, Nyan Win, that the move was "not in keeping with the times".

"He was quite clear that in the new constitution, a Myanmar citizen who has a foreign husband or who has children not citizens of Myanmar will be disqualified, as it was in the 1974 constitution," Yeo said, according to the paper.

Earlier this month, Myanmar's ruling generals announced a referendum in May on a new constitution, to be followed by an election in 2010.

The generals last held elections in 1990, but ignored them when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent more than 12 of the past 18 years under some form of detention.