Singapore FM: Suu Kyi to be Barred from Voting in 2010

Burma 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 newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said his Burma 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 Burma'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 [Burma] citizen who has a foreign husband or who has children not citizens of Burma will be disqualified, as it was in the 1974 constitution," Yeo said, according to the paper.

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