YANGON: Myanmar’s opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi is considering contesting a seat in parliament from a constituency south of Yangon, the country’s biggest city, a spokesman of her party said on Monday.
“She is willing to run for the lower house in the upcoming by-election from Kawhmu Constituency, a rural town in the southern outskirts of Yangon, but the formal decision is still to be made when the party has been registered officially,” Nyan Win of her National League for Democracy (NLD) told Reuters.
The 66-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate has been blocked from politics and held in detention for long stretches since returning from overseas in 1988. She was freed by Myanmar’s military leaders last year after it held the first elections in 20 years. The NLD boycotted the elections and was officially disbanded. In March, the junta handed power to a nominally civlian government that has embarked on significant reforms, and the NLD is in the process of re-registering as a political party.
No date has been set for the by-election, but 48 constituencies are open — 40 in the lower house, six in the upper house and two in the regional parliaments. (Reuters)