“If the NLD wins and is able to form a government, I will be above the president”, she said at a news conference. She says she will be “above the president”. Suu Kyi was married to a British citizen, now deceased, and has two children who hold British citizenship.
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Under Myanmar’s constitution the president is elected by an electoral college comprising elected representatives of the upper and lower houses of parliament and non-elected military MPs.
“While the constitution is far from ideal, and understandably perceived as a flawed document, it still serves as the basis for Myanmar’s current political system, including the elections this weekend”, said Nyantha Maw Lin, managing director at political consultancy Vriens & Partners in Yangon.
“Clearly, according to the constitution, nobody is above the President”.
That would nearly certainly mean a second term for incumbent President Thein Sein, and could be achieved even if his party takes as little as 15% of the seats. “But I do not think that it is something that we should see as an impossible obstacle”. Suggesting she and her party are the best hope for improving the lives of ordinary people here.
Opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday urged Coco Islands voters to show courage by voting for her party.
Suu Kyi s National League for Democracy (NLD) is eyeing an outright majority at Sunday s general election, the first the party has contested since 1990. Over 10,000 local and global election monitors, diplomats and journalists have registered with the Union Election Commission to observe the vote and ensure that elections unfold in a free and fair manner. A week ago, a gang used machetes to attack a National League for Democracy member of Parliament, Naing Ngan Lynn, in Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon).
“The anti-Rohingya rhetoric has created an anti-Muslim environment, which culminated in Aung San Suu Kyi’s party refusing to list any Muslim candidate”.
President Thein Sein insists he supports Myanmar’s democratic development and has vowed the election will be free and fair, making the polls the clearest test yet of reform. “I would promise everybody who is living in this country proper protection in accordance with the law and in accordance with the norms of human rights”.
Not only will the future of Myanmar democracy hang in the balance, but also any prospects for political reconciliation, an end to decades of armed conflict, and a path to sustainable development.
But elsewhere parties representing ethnic minorities are likely to do well and could play key roles in any post-election coalition.
Suu Kyi has repeatedly refused to break her silence on the plight of the Rohingya, who have been fleeing violence and state enforced discrimination in the country by sea.
Among the most serious is the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, a much-maligned minority.
Despite Ms. Suu Kyi’s popularity, a few analysts believe that it will be hard for her to repeat her 1990 landslide results, given competition from ethnic parties that are expected to make gains in their regions.
Suu Kyi said the NLD had already chosen someone who was prepared to act as president, but would not say who it was. “This is not what democracy should be about”. Aung San Suu Kyi had returned to her home country two years prior, to tend to her dying mother, but found herself caught up in mass demonstrations against the junta.
But Suu Kyi has accused the government of backsliding on reforms, a fear echoed by many global observers.
About 30 million of Myanmar’s 52 million people will be eligible to vote for three quarters of the 664 seats in the two houses of the legislature.
A total of 150 observers from 28 countries, including Norway, Switzerland and Canada, will be stationed at polling stations on Sunday.
Amid a rising wave of Buddhist nationalism, the group was excluded this time around, though it had been allowed to vote in both a 2010 poll and in 1990.
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“[The] instructions were to observe and analyze and report, but never to interfere in the process”, Lambsdorff said. “We will not interfere”. But what is even more significant for the rest of the world is the notion of Myanmar as a model: a model of peaceful change from dictatorship, at a time of failed transitions and enduring authoritarian regimes elsewhere.
