Now that Burma/Myanmar has announced that its first general election for 20 years will be held on November 7, many Western journalists will soon be asking about voter preferences, profiling party leaders and ruminating on the outcome.So it needs to be spelt out in the most unequivocal terms that Burma’s coming election is a sham.

The party that won a landslide victory at the last election in 1990, the National League for Democracy, was never allowed to take power. It has been marginalised this time by a ruling that parties whose membership includes political prisoners will not be allowed to register. This effectively required it to expel its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and more than 400 of its members who are in prison. Quite rightly, the party chose to snub the entire process.

Meanwhile, 40 other parties have little room to manoeuvre. Those who succeed in clambering through the regime’s hoops and gaining election will find 25 percent of the seats reserved for the military.

We must heed US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who wants President Barack Obama to “renew his support” for Aung San Suu Kyi.