Myanmar president pledges to hold clean, free, fair elections

Myanmar President U Thein Sein on Thursday pledged to try his best to hold clean, free and fair general elections during the tenure of his first civilian government in many years.

In a radio message to the nation, U Thein Sein said his government would also try its utmost to complete the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with ethnic armed groups before the 2015 general elections, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Through the political dialogue on the base of peace process, constitution amendment will come in," he said, underlining the initial efforts for constitution amendment as a major political move ahead.

Although dispute and competition are part of the democracy process, he said that it would not impact on the political stability, reiterating that election is a correct and practical path for political parties to choose and hoping the farsightedness of political leaders would guide and contribute to the country's political stability.

Myanmar's general elections have been set for November 8, while its new ceasefire talks with the ethnic armed groups sought to further negotiate on the formal signing of the NCA, which had been preliminarily agreed on at the end of March after conclusion of more than one year's negotiations.