Yangon: Myanmar’s National League for Democracy party, which won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election but was never allowed to take power by the ruling military, on Thursday praised how the U.S. conducted its presidential election.

Dirty campaign tricks and the vagaries of the electoral college system may turn off many in the U.S., but in Myanmar – where members of the winning NLD not only were denied power but were persecuted and in thousands of case jailed, U.S.-style democracy looks more than fair.

“I watched the closely-contested U.S. election with great admiration because it clearly demonstrates the maturity of a democratic nation,” NLD spokesman U Lwin told The Associated Press.

NLD party leader Aung San Suu Kyi was unavailable for comment – she is under house arrest, as she has been many of the years since even before the 1990 election.

U Lwin said Democratic challenger John Kerry showed his maturity by conceding defeat and calling for unity for the betterment of his country.

“We must emulate and take as an example the way both leaders reacted to the election victory,” said U Lwin.

He left unsaid the contrast with his country’s military leaders, who refuse even to sit down and talk with Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel peace laureate.

U Lwin said U.S. policy toward Myanmar’s military government – which has long been very hostile and critical -had been unlikely to change no matter who had won Tuesday’s polls.

“Both Democrats and Republicans have consistently supported Myanmar’s democracy movement and human rights issues,” he said. “They would apply the same policy toward Myanmar.”

The U.S. first applied economic and political sanctions against the junta during President’s Bill Clinton’s administration, and they were considerably strengthened last year by the Bush administration. Washington disapproves of the military’s poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically-elected government.