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    January 10, 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi Confirms Run for Burmese Parliament

   VOA News
   Aung San Suu Kyi Photo: Reuters
   Aung San Suu Kyi

   Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has confirmed that she will
   run for parliament in the country's highly anticipated April
   by-elections.
   A spokesperson for her National League for Democracy party said Tuesday
   the Nobel Peace Prize winner will compete for a seat in Kawhmu
   Township, on the outskirts of her hometown of Rangoon.
   Last week, the government approved the NLD to participate in the April
   1 elections, marking its return to mainstream politics after two
   decades. But it had been unclear whether Aung San Suu Kyi herself would
   compete for a seat.
   It will mark the first time the pro-democracy leader has run for
   political office. Her NLD party won a landslide victory in 1990, but
   the military government prevented it from assuming power. Aung San Suu
   Kyi spent the majority of the years since then under house arrest.
   The NLD boycotted general elections in November 2010 because of
   restrictions that, among other things, would have prevented Aung San
   Suu Kyi from running. That vote installed a nominally civilian
   government that has made a series of reforms, including beginning a
   dialogue with opposition groups.
   Nicholas Farrelly, a Burma analyst at the Australian National
   University, says the NLD's decision to compete in the upcoming
   elections reflects a significant change in Burma's political climate.
   "Since the elections that were held back in November 2010, so much has
   changed in the politics of Burma, and I think we see that so clearly
   with this recent effort by Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters to
   become active players once again in the country's mainstream political
   system."
   Farrelly warns that the outcome of the upcoming elections may not
   significantly impact government policy. But he says it still represents
   a symbolic step in Burma's path to democracy.
   "To have Aung San Suu Kyi sitting in the National Assembly would be a
   real turn for the better," he said. "For the country, it would perhaps
   show that some of the vitriol and confrontation and bad blood which has
   tended to affect the country's politics is starting to be forgotten,
   and with that, there may be more opportunities for more compromise and
   for some kind of reconciliation."
   The elections are intended to fill 48 parliamentary seats vacated by
   those who have since become government ministers. But the number of
   seats available is not enough to threaten the resounding majority held
   by the ruling military-backed party.

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