Aung San Suu Kyi eyes majority in parliament

Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday, August 25, she was confident her opposition party would win Myanmar’s landmark elections if they are free and fair, but raised concern at the country’s overall progress towards democracy. It will be the first nationwide poll the National League for Democracy (NLD) has contested for 25 years in a country strait-jacketed for almost half a century under army rule. The party won by a landslide in 1990 but was barred by the military from taking power. But the veteran campaigner, who was held for years under house arrest by the former junta, said she was also “very concerned” about irregularities in the run-up to the polls, stressing that the long-cloistered country still has a long way to go before it can be called democratic. But she was clear the party, which is fielding over a thousand candidates across the country, would not “step back” from the elections. Suu Kyi, who turns 70 this year, is constitutionally barred from seeking the presidency.

Read the full story on Rappler.