Polls to herald new era, want good ties with India: Suu Kyi

Confident of winning next month's historic parliamentary polls, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has said it will decide Myanmar's "future", and hoped India will play a major role in the country's quest for democracy.
Suu Kyi said she will try to have "good" ties with both New Delhi and Beijing, if voted to power.
The 70-year-old Myanmar Opposition leader said a raft of reforms including bringing the powerful military under civilian government, ensuring independence of judiciary, reconciliation among ethnic groups, besides opening up of the economy will be initiated if her National League for Democracy forms the government.
In the midst of electioneering, the iconic leader, who led the struggle against military rule for close to three decades, underlined India's possible role in transformation of the country but disapproved of the secrecy surrounding a military operation by Indian armed forces along the Indo-Myanmar border in June.

Asked whether Indian forces will be allowed to carry out such operations inside Myanmar's territory, if her party forms government, Suu Kyi said she was not aware of the existing policy but added if such operations were allowed it will be done with transparency and not "silently and surreptitiously".
Suu Kyi, who had spent around 15 years under house arrest between 1989 and 2010, said she was saddened when India, the largest democracy in the world, was "turning back" on democracy to maintain good ties with military government but added "changes" are taking place in the right direction and that the historic frienship between the two neighbours will continue.

"The past is just for us to take lessons from and not for us to mull over it and get angry and resentful," she said, adding she found Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to help Myanmar in its democratic transition.

She said the November 8 election will be turning point in Myanmar's history and that there was a need for an effective monitoring of the process as there was a question mark whether the military will allow it to be free and fair.
"It is an election which will change the whole future of our country, of the generations to come. So we say to the people you are not voting just for yourself but for children and grand children and great grand children. This is the most important election in the history of independent Burma," she told Karan Thapar of India Today TV.

Suu Kyi said the chairman of the Election Commission last month had said he would take responsibility for correctness of 30 per cent of electorate in the voters' list and called upon everybody including the international community to keenly monitor the polls.