* Credibility requires broad participation - UN rights envoy
* His report calls for release of 2,100 political prisoners
GENEVA, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Myanmar&${esc.hash}39;s first election in 20 years, scheduled for next month, will be credible only if the ruling junta allows opposition leaders and ethnic minorities to participate, a United Nations rights investigator said.
An estimated 2,100 political prisoners, including student leaders, monks, pro-democracy leaders, and ethnic minority leaders are languishing in prisons across the former Burma and must be released before the Nov. 7 vote, said Tomas Ojea Quintana, special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar.
"These people have a legitimate role to play in these historic elections. An immediate, unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience is necessary for the elections to be credible," he said in a report made public before its presentation to the General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.
"Genuine elections call for broad participation."
International voting monitors and foreign journalists will be barred from the election, Myanmar&${esc.hash}39;s junta said on Monday, deepening concern that it will prove a sham. [ID:nSGE69H07N]
Fearful voters and veiled military threats have turned the campaign trail into a largely one-sided show overwhelmingly in favour of proxies for the ruling army. [ID:nSGE69D0B9]
The National League for Democracy (NLD), whose landslide victory in a 1990 vote was ignored by the junta, has boycotted the ballot and been dissolved by the authorities as a result.
NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning figurehead of Myanmar&${esc.hash}39;s fight for democracy, remains under house arrest and has instructed party members to shun the election.
Essential conditions for credible elections include the freedoms of expression, assembly and association, yet authorities appear to have further restricted them in the run-up, according to Ojea Quintana, an Argentine lawyer.
Prohibitive costs and time pressure to register members and to field candidates have restricted parties&${esc.hash}39; ability to contest the elections, according to the independent investigator for the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Election authorities have rejected the candidacy of a dozen former leaders of a major ethnic group from Kachin state, which borders China.
Last month&${esc.hash}39;s decision came after pressure by the ruling junta for armed ethnic groups who have enjoyed decades of de facto autonomy to join the political process in a bid to unify the nation before the election.
An estimated 111,000 people remain in hiding in eastern Myanmar "at risk of being shot on sight by the military" and will not be able to vote, according to Ojea Quintana. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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