Leaders of Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), should prepare the party for the 2010 general elections, according to an adviser for the youth members of the NLD who resigned on Thursday.
Former youth adviser Khin Htun called on the NLD to hold regular meetings and negotiations, and to discuss its political role ahead of 2010. The people of Burma are not interested in the reshuffling going on within the party at the moment, he said.
“The Burmese public only want to know how the NLD will approach the election in 2010 and how the party intends to lead the country,” he said.
Khin Htun urged the NLD to air discussions on the junta-drafted constitution as well as lobbying and campaigning for the support of the people. He also called on the party to hold dialogue with ethnic leaders and members of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP).
Htaung Kho Thang, a member of the CRPP and the United Nationalities League for Democracy, said on Friday that he agreed with Khin Htun and said that he and other ethnic leaders, including members of the CRPP, would willingly cooperate with the NLD leadership.
Htaung Kho Thang also said that the resignation on Wednesday of more than 100 of the NLD’s youth members would have a negative impact on the NLD’s followers.
“Young people are the driving force of a party,” he said. “If the youth don’t support the party, the party will be weakened.”
However, a veteran Burmese politician, Thakin Chan Htun, insisted that the constant restrictions imposed on the NLD by the military junta is the reason why its leaders are unable to prepare successfully for democracy in Burma.
More than 100 youth members of the NLD from about 19 townships in Rangoon Division resigned on Thursday, complaining that they were being excluded by the party’s top leaders from the decision-making process.
The resignations came a day after NLD Chairman Aung Shwe appointed six new youth advisors and assigned 10 others to lead youth activities for the party.
Khin Htun said that another NLD leader, Win Tin, who recently returned to the NLD after 19 years in Insein prison, will unofficially help to reconcile the former youth members with the party’s leadership.
Despite the resignations, Khin Htun said that the former NLD members would not seek asylum in foreign countries, but would continue to support the struggle for democracy in Burma.
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