Suu Kyi ‘intends’ to join Myanmar by-elections

MYANMAR: Myanmar’s democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi plans to run in Myanmar’s upcoming by-elections, her spokesman said Monday, after her party decided to rejoin the official political arena. “Daw Suu said she intends to take part in the election,” Nyan Win, spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD), told AFP. Daw is a term of respect in Myanmar. Suu Kyi hinted that she would stand for office at a meeting of party delegates on Friday, when they decided to re-register as a political party and contest elections after boycotting last year’s vote, Myanmar’s first in 20 years. There are 48 parliamentary seats available but no polling dates have been set for by-elections.

The NLD’s decision to end its boycott of the political process came on the same day the military-dominated government received a dramatic seal of approval from the United States for a string of nascent reforms. After speaking directly to Nobel laureate Suu Kyi for the first time, in a call from Air Force One, US President Barack Obama said Hillary Clinton would next month become the first secretary of state to visit Myanmar for 50 years. Attending an Asian summit in Indonesia, Obama said Clinton’s December 1-2 trip was designed to stoke “flickers” of democratic reform in a country that for decades has been blighted by military rule and international isolation.

The NLD won a landslide victory in polls in 1990 but the then-ruling junta never allowed the party to take power. Suu Kyi, although a figurehead for the campaign, was under house arrest at the time.

AFP