"BANGKOK —The ghost of military-ruled Burma?s first strongman, Gen Ne Win, has returned to haunt the Southeast Asian nation?s current junta leader, Senior Gen Than Shwe, as the country heads for its first general election in two decades on Nov. 7. In a bizarre twist, the candidates loyal to the late Ne Win, who ruled Burma with an iron fist from a 1962 coup till 1988, are being cast in some quarters as a welcome force for expanding the very restricted political space in place since the early 1990s, when Than Shwe came to power. The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), backed by Than Shwe, has nominated over 1,100 candidates for elections to the national and regional parliaments. The National Unity Party (NUP), supported by Ne Win loyalists who lost political favors and power after Than Shwe became the junta leader, has nominated 999 candidates to contest for seats in the national and regional bodies. These two political behemoths, both with ties with the junta leaders in Burma, have dwarfed the political parties with more credible democratic credentials, such as the National Democratic Force (NDF), the Democratic Party of Myanmar (DPM) and the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP). The NDF has 163 candidates running, while the DPM has 48 and the SNDP 156..."