Stay alert to election fraud

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi told tens of thousands of supporters yesterday to be vigilant against election fraud during a huge show of strength a week before landmark elections.

The country heads to the polls next Sunday in what observers are hoping will be the fairest election for decades as the nation slowly shakes off almost a half-century of brutal military rule.

"The people's strength is our strength as well," Suu Kyi, 70, told a sea of supporters in eastern Yangon, her first major rally in the commercial hub and by far the largest gathering yet of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

"We do not need to work with dirty ways," she added, to loud cheers and laughter.

"We will act until we win the correct way... We all need to be fully vigilant," she added.

It will be the first nationwide election for 25 years to be contested by Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party, potentially tipping the balance of power away from the military and its ruling party allies for the first time in generations if the vote is free.

Myanmar was run for decades by a brutal junta which jailed, killed and exiled dissidents while fixing elections or simply ignoring their results.