Suu Kyi’s party previously won elections held in 1990, but the results were invalidated and she was placed under house arrest for 15 of the next 21 years.
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25% of seats are reserved for unelected military representatives who hold veto power over constitutional amendments and have no interest in allowing Suu Kyi to become president. “He will act in accordance with the decisions of the party”, said Suu Kyi in an interview with Channel News Asia, adding that the president would be “told exactly what he can do”.
Long a political favourite of Western leaders, Suu Kyi has received telephone calls of congratulations from the UK’s David Cameron, Barack Obama of the USA, and French President Francois Hollande, the NLD said.
Mr Thein Sein served in the previous military regime, and was named president after the USDP won a 2010 election that was boycotted by the NLD, who considered it unfair.
Coming to her personal biography Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19th June 1945, at Yangon, Burma.
It promises a new dawn for a country asphyxiated by half a century of army rule that battered the economy and repressed its people.
There was little doubt that Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) would prevail in a free and fair national election.
Despite sharing decades of common struggle against the military junta that ruled Myanmar until 2011, the relationship between the NLD and many ethnic leaders has always been marked by mistrust.
A foreign visitor poses next to a graffiti depiction of Aung San Suu Kyi outside the headquarters of the National League for Democracy party in Yangon. The military’s bloc will also be able to effectively pick the second vice president and the armed forces will retain control over the home and defense ministries and border areas.
The NLD victory may further speed the opening of the economy begun under the quasi-civilian Union Solidarity and Development Party government.
Both men have congratulated the NLD on its election performance and have vowed to abide by the result as well as help a peaceful transition of power. Suu Kyi was arrested and forced her to stay in her house and not have any visitors. It will be the first time since 1962 that the military establishment does not control the government.
Obama and Ban also praised Myanmar President Thein Sein for successfully staging the historic poll, with the United Nations chief acknowledging his “courage and vision” to organize an election in which the ruling camp was trounced. Amid a wave of democratic sentiment sparked by the Philippines’ People Power Revolution in 1986, she took center stage in Myanmar’s democracy movement, participating in the formation of the NLD.
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She resumed her political career immediately upon her release and shortly after commenced discussions with the junta about registering her party to join elections and the role she could play in the country’s politics.
