A spokesman for the National League for Democracy said the party won't field candidates because of the junta's "unjust" electoral laws that ban their leader, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, from taking part.

The NLD with Suu Kyi at its head won the 1990 elections by a landslide but the ruling military refused to hand over power. Since then the junta under Senior Gen. Than Shwe, 73, has repeatedly said that democracy will come when they believe the time is right and in a way that meets the needs of the country.

In what many critics say are laws designed to deny another victory to the outspoken pro democracy leader, the junta banned people with criminal records from running for a parliamentary seat. They also banned religious people including Buddhist monks, many of whom demonstrated against the junta in 2008.

The military has also reserved one-quarter of seats for itself in any new parliament.

Suu Kyi, 64, has served around 14 of the past 20 years under some form of arrest for her outspoken views for having more democracy in Myanmar, formerly called Burma.

Last month a court rejected her final appeal against her latest house detention for violating the terms of a previous detention. She briefly sheltered an uninvited U.S. intruder in her home in May 2009, for which she was sentenced last August to three years in prison with hard labor.

Shwe immediately commuted the sentence to 18 months house arrest, a move that some believed was a precursor to a more liberal national election whenever it came. However, the election laws announced earlier this month have shown the military remains defiant in the face of international pressure to open up participation to a wider electorate.

Shwe has promised an election but no exact day has been set, although October is thought to be the month.

The NLD decision was taken after "heated debates" within the party at a meeting of the central committee in the city Yangon, formerly call Rangoon, a report by Mizzima, an India-based expatriate-staffed news Web site said.

More than 100 party members attended the meeting where the bloc decided not to register as a formal political party by May 7, which means it will have excluded itself from running candidates. Suu Kyi is said to have sent a message saying she would abide by the party's decision. But Mizzima reports that she also said earlier in the month that she didn't want the party to register.

Mizzima also reported that during the meeting two trucks with security men and two firetrucks were stationed nearby.

The NLD decision comes after a weekend where the military celebrated its annual Armed Forces Day with a march in the new capital city of Nay Pyi Taw.

Shwe again made a speech warning foreign powers not to interfere in what the junta considers an internal issue.

Many human rights groups and governments, including those of the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have cast doubts on the credibility of any election that does not include democracy leaders that have been imprisoned, naming Suu Kyi personally.

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