Hong Kong — The ruling military junta in Myanmar announced a new election law Wednesday that will prevent Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s leading opposition figure, from participating in upcoming parliamentary elections.The new law, the Political Parties Registration Law, prohibits anyone convicted of a crime from being a member of an official party. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the head of the National League for Democracy, has been under detention or house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years.

The law also could force Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi out of her own party. The National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in 1990 in the last democratic election in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, although the junta ignored the results and has remained in power.

The Supreme Court two weeks ago dismissed an appeal of her latest conviction, for breaching the terms of her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American man to stay overnight at her lakeside home in central Yangon.

The news of the election law, which also excludes religious officials and civil servants from party membership, was announced in Myanmar’s state-run media. The government said further election laws would be announced in official newspapers in the coming days.

“We are concerned by the Burmese authorities’ unilateral decision to begin releasing the elections laws without first engaging in substantive dialogue with the democratic opposition and ethnic minority leaders,” the American Embassy in Yangon said in a statement.

The embassy said Wednesday that the United States is “skeptical that the elections planned for this year will be credible. Most opposition leaders remain in jail, any dissent of the regime is repressed, and there is no freedom of speech, association or of the press.”

The junta has pledged to hold parliamentary elections this year, although a specific date has yet to be disclosed.