Aung San Suu Kyi & Myanmar's 'Muslim-free' election - Al Jazeera English

[MattSh]

Aung San Suu Kyi has appeared in at least two different threads today, so I'm sorry to report...

Myanmar's main opposition party, led by the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, deliberately bypassed Muslim candidates ahead of the November election, a senior party member told Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source said Suu Kyi ordered an "Islamic purge" in the National League for Democracy (NLD) to appease growing anti-Muslim sentiment fuelled by hardline Buddhist nationalists.

Not one of the NLD's 1,151 candidates standing for regional and national elections is Muslim, despite there being around five million Muslims - or between 4 and 10 percent of the population - in the country.

There are also no Muslim candidates in the military-backed, governing Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) running in what has been billed as the country's first free and fair general election in 25 years.

In the run-up to the vote, local election commissions reportedly rejected dozens of Muslim candidates with authorities denying that their parents were citizens, claims which many of the shunned candidates denied.

"I think Suu Kyi is a bit concerned about the Ma Ba Tha, so it became an Islamic purge here," said the source.

-----> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/myanmar-muslim-free-election-151024182312301.html