Rangoon - Burma's election commission has set November 7 as the date for a much-awaited general election, national television announced Friday.
Military-ruled Myanmar, also called Burma, last held an election in 1990. The opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), headed by pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, won in a landslide.
The ruling junta, however, refused to hand over power to the NLD, claiming a new constitution was needed before civilian rule was feasible. It has kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for most of the past 20 years.
Suu Kyi, whose latest 18-month detention term started May 27 last year, is now likely to be freed around November 27.
Neither she nor her party will be contesting the polls because new party registration regulations would have forced the NLD to expel Suu Kyi. The rules bar political parties from including members currently serving prison terms.
Most NLD members decided to boycott the polls and the NLD has since been disbanded as a legal party.
One breakaway faction, however, has set itself up as the National Democratic Force (NLF) to contest the election.
It is one of 40 parties that have registered for the election, with six more awaiting approval to register.
Few observers expect the polls to bring significant change to Myanmar, which has been dominated by the military since 1962.
The 2008 constitution effectively gives the military control over any future elected government by making the upper house of the National Parliament a partially junta-appointed body with veto power over legislation.
Last week, a leader of a pro-democracy party registered to contest the election resigned to protest the military-imposed conditions on the polls.
Phyo Min Thein, the former chairman of the Union Democratic Party, resigned August 5 to protest the ruling junta's refusal to free some 2,100 political prisoners prior to the polls, to allow a free press, and to sever its close ties with the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the political arm of the military.
"The coming elections will be neither free nor fair," Thein said.
Thein, 41, was a student leader in the 1988 anti-military demonstration that ended in a brutal massacre by the army that claimed about 3,000 lives. He was jailed for 15 years before his release in July 2005.