Many legislators expressed hope that it was the beginning of a new, brighter era following decades of military oppression, civil war and pervasive poverty. Another NLD MP – Khin Maung Myint – told Associated Press: “I never imagined that our party would be able to form the government”.
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With numerous previous government’s so-called “quick win” policies already enacted, the NLD has said it will focus on luring more global investment. “But now it’s similar to a shock to us and to the planet also”.
While the NLD majority will need to time to find their feet, the military has had plenty of time to prepare for the handover.
Hundreds of new MPs, mostly from the National League for Democracy (NLD) but also some smaller parties, have been sworn in.
However, she has vowed to rule the country through the new leader.
The Southeast Asian nation started moving from a half-century of dictatorship toward democracy in 2011, when military rulers inexplicably agreed to hand over power to a nominally civilian government headed by President Thein Sein, a general turned reformist. On the steps of the Lower House, he took a moment to recite one of his latest pieces entitled “No Turning Back”.
Suu Kyi has had two meetings with Army commander-in-chief General Min Aung Hlaing since the election, which suggests that the elected political leader and the Tatmadaw chief can come to terms with a compromise.
“We are likely to announce the president in the second week of February”.
Despite the symbolic importance of today’s session, the real political shift will happen at the end of March, when a new government will be formed and the new president will take over from Thein Sein.
Under the 2008 constitution, Suu Kyi is barred from taking the position because her children are British citizens.
The clause should not be changed “for the goodness of the mother country”, according to an article Monday in the army’s Myawaddy Daily newspaper.
But a quarter of all seats are reserved for the military, which also retains key ministries under the constitution.
NLD won a major victory last November 8. After several changes in the election law, the NLD contested several dozen by-elections in 2012, winning virtually all of them.
The NLD won some 80% of elected seats in November’s historic vote, catapulting it to power as Myanmar’s ruling party after decades of struggle that saw many of its members imprisoned.
Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest after the NLD won an election in 1990 after the junta failed to recognize the result of the vote.
Establishing democracy is only one hurdle the country faces. Thein Sein was credited with releasing political prisoners, ending censorship, seeking peace with ethnic minority militants and paving the way towards credible elections. Fighting over resources in many areas of the country continues despite a peace process brokered under the auspices of the military government. The army overthrew the last democratically-elected parliament in 1962.
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But just two days before her National League for Democracy takes control of parliament, Aung San Suu Kyi is under scrutiny for nominating a former militia leader from the defeated pro-military party for a top job. He and six of his colleagues were assassinated in July 1947, six months before Myanmar’s independence.
