As polls loom, Myanmar’s Suu Kyi leads rally honouring hero father

Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi addressed a crowd of thousands Friday in the biggest celebrations honouring her independence hero father in memory, underscoring her legacy months before leading the opposition to momentous elections. In scenes reminiscent of her triumphant election campaign three years ago, Suu Kyi addressed a huge crowd in her father’s central Myanmar birthplace, with many supporters waving her party flag or portraits of the general as an earnest young revolutionary in a military cap.

If we want to inherit from my father, we have to build a real democratic nation.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi

Thursday’s rally marking the centenary of Aung San’s birth in Natmauk - a remote town nestled in the dusty plains of central Myanmar - is the centrepiece of countrywide celebrations that are far more extensive than previous years. People had camped out overnight to see ‘the Lady’, as she is known, many sleeping on the ground in the local pagoda, on roadsides or in their cars in the farming town. The celebrations come as Myanmar awaits a breakthrough general election later this year seen as a crucial test of the country’s emergence from military rule.

I love and respect his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi. I want her to be a president. Our country will develop so much if she becomes president.

Kyaw Ko Ko Latt, a Yangon waiter

Aung San Suu Kyi Asia-Pacific