Suu Kyi makes Myanmar parliamentary debut

MYANMAR: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi made her historic parliamentary debut Monday, marking a new phase in her near quarter century struggle to bring democracy to her army-dominated homeland. Suu Kyi, whose unswerving campaigning saw her locked up for years by the former junta and earned her a Nobel Peace Prize, appeared calm as she arrived to take her seat as an elected politician for the first time in the capital Naypyidaw.

“I will try my best for the country,” she told AFP.

The democracy champion's first taste of public office comes at an uncertain time for Myanmar after recent communal violence and a series of student arrests cast a shadow over promising changes in the former pariah state.

But it also comes amid expectations that several senior hardliners are to be replaced by reformists in an imminent cabinet reshuffle that would mark the first major change of personnel in the top echelons of government since it replaced junta rule last year.

AFP