Myanmar president pledges to hold clean, free, fair election

YANGON -- Myanmar President U Thein Sein Thursday pledged to try his best to hold a clean, free and fair general election at the tenure of his first civilian government in many years.

In his radio message to the nation, U Thein Sein said his government will also try its utmost to complete the signing of the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) with ethnic armed groups before the 2015 general election, believing that "Good situation is still prevailed with domestic peace process."

"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 will 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 election has been set for November 8, while its new ceasefire talks with the ethnic armed groups is being sought to further negotiate on the formal signing of the NCA, which had been preliminarily agreed at the end of March after conclusion of more than one year's negotiation on the NCA.