Joseph Allchin
Guardian
November 14, 2011
RANGOON- Aung San Suu Kyi appears on the verge of leading her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), in a groundbreaking return to parliamentary politics in Burma a year after she was freed from house arrest.
The potential move comes after the government signed an amendment to the electoral law on Friday that seemed to remove legal and ideological barriers to the party’s participation, making the NLD “very likely to register”, according to its spokesperson, U Nyan Win.
A series of byelections are believed to be due to take place at the end of December, involving around 50 parliamentary seats. They could see Aung San Suu Kyi take her first official role since she emerged as a leading voice in the dem≠ocracy movement more than 20 years ago.
Aung San Suu Kyi led the NLD to an election win in 1990, but the party was barred from taking office by the military junta. Since then, the 66-year-old Nobel prize-winning campaigner has spent 15 of the past 22 years under house arrest. She was released last November, a few days after a controversial general election, boycotted by the NLD.
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