News Digest

With Suu Kyi blocked, her Myanmar party eyes ex-general for president

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) will go into next year’s parliamentary election in Myanmar with no candidate for president and might even support a former general from the pro-military ruling party, NLD officials said. Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, 69, is barred by the constitution from becoming president and is apparently unwilling to give her blessing to an alternative candidate from within her own party. One senior member of Suu Kyi’s party said it might give its backing for Shwe Mann, speaker of parliament and chairman of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), to be put forward for the presidency. The USDP is made up of former military officers. But that would risk angering many rank-and-file NLD members, including many who were imprisoned by the military. It could risk undermining support for the country’s most popular party and its leader.

We believe there is no number two position in our party. No one is second to Aung San Suu Kyi.

Han Tha Myint, a member of the NLD’s executive committee

Suu Kyi, who spent nearly two decades under house arrest for her efforts to promote democracy, is ineligible for the presidency under the constitution, drafted during military rule, which bars candidates with a foreign child or spouse. Her late husband was British, as are her two sons. Next year’s parliamentary elections will be the first since President Thein Sein embarked on landmark reforms in 2011, dismantling the control of the military which had ruled since seizing power in a 1962 coup. It will also be the first general election the NLD has contested since it swept a 1990 vote that the military ignored. The party boycotted a 2010 election held under military rule when Suu Kyi was under house arrest. The NLD collected 5 million signatures around the country to press the ruling party to revise the constitution to remove the military’s veto over changes to the constitution, including the clause that prevents Suu Kyi, the daughter of the country’s independence hero, General Aung San, from becoming president. But there appears to be little hope that the ruling party, which is supported by the military, will allow an amendment to a constitution that gives the military veto powers.

Many of our party members and citizens don’t like a situation where army men are governing the country.

Nyan Win, NLD executive committee member