YANGON: US President Barack Obama urged Myanmar on Friday to hold “free, fair and inclusive” elections as he threw his weight behind a bid by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to change a constitution that bars her from the presidency.

Obama held talks with fellow Nobel laureate Suu Kyi at her lakeside villa in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, after arriving from the capital Naypyidaw where he discussed the nation’s troubled reform process with President Thein Sein.

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Speaking at a joint press conference he warned Myanmar’s reforms since shedding outright military rule in 2011 were by “no means complete or irreversible” and called for “free, fair and inclusive” elections in the nation, where Suu Kyi and her party are set to contest crucial polls next year.

Suu Kyi, who has publicly stated her desire to be president, is barred from the top office by a constitutional clause ruling out anyone with foreign spouse or children from the presidency.

Her late husband and two sons are British and the democracy champion is seeking an amendment.

Using strong language, Obama took up the issue telling reporters that “the amendment process needs to reflect inclusion rather than exclusion”. “I don’t understand the provision that would bar somebody from running for president because of who his (someone’s) children are”. Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party is expected to sweep polls in late 2015, branded the contentious clause as “unfair, unjust and undemocratic” adding “it is not right to discriminate against one particular citizen”.

The issue is currently being debated in parliament, where 25 per cent of the seats are ring-fenced for the military.

“The majority of our people understand that this constitution cannot stand as it is,” if democracy is to be achieved, the democracy figurehead added.

The pair spoke in the garden of Suu Kyi’s villa in a reprise of their landmark meeting in 2012, which saw the US leader throw his political might behind Myanmar’s transition from junta rule.

After talks with his counterpart Thein Sein late on Thursday Obama expressed cautious optimism for the once-cloistered nation that balanced out earlier warnings on the risks of “backsliding” on the transition.

“We recognise change is hard and you do not always move in a straight line but I’m optimistic,” Obama said.

Published in Dawn, November 15th , 2014