Burma's Suu Kyi to Run for Parliament
The Nobel Peace Prize winner adds some legitimacy to the reclusive nation's upcoming elections.
| Posted Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012, at 11:33 AM ET
Photo by Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images.
Burma's upcoming elections just gained a chance at some legitimacy: opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has confirmed that she'll run for a seat in Parliament.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent much of the past two decades under house arrest, a period that, conveniently for the ruling military junta, included the country's last elections in 2010. Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, boycotted that election -- which was the first in the country in 20 years -- in large part because she was unable to participate, the Associated Press explains.
In recent years, the country's ruling junta has started to loosen its grip, and observers have expressed optimism that more progress in the reclusive nation will follow. Suu Kyi met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton late last year and CNN reports that she will likewise meet with other senior U.S. officials this week, including Derek Mitchell, the U.S. special envoy to Burma, also known as Myanmar.
The elections are on April 1. But as the Christian Science Monitor explains, even a big win by Suu Kyi's party will not significantly change the balance of power in Parliament: the country's pro-military party has 80 percent of the almost 500 elected parliamentary seats. Only 48 seats are up for grabs this spring.
