NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar: Myanmar
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi made her historic parliamentary debut
Monday, marking a new phase in her near quarter century struggle to bring
democracy to her army-dominated homeland.
Suu Kyi, whose unswerving campaigning saw her locked up
for years by the former junta and earned her a Nobel Peace Prize, appeared calm
as she arrived to take her seat as an elected politician for the first time in
the capital Naypyidaw.
"I will try my best for the country," she told
AFP.
The democracy champion's first taste of public office
comes at an uncertain time for Myanmar after recent communal violence and a
series of student arrests cast a shadow over promising changes in the former
pariah state.
But it also comes amid expectations that several senior
hardliners are to be replaced by reformists in an imminent cabinet reshuffle
that would mark the first major change of personnel in the top echelons of
government since it replaced junta rule last year.
Suu Kyi will join fellow members of her National League
for Democracy (NLD), as both the party and its iconic leader transform from
dissident outsiders to mainstream political players in the wake of landmark
April by-elections.
The 67-year-old, one of the NLD's 37 Lower house members
of parliament, postponed her debut in the fledgling legislature last week to
recover from a gruelling European tour and visit her constituency.
Fellow Lower house NLD MP May Win Myint said she was
"excited" about Suu Kyi's arrival.
"We are ready to support her," she said.
Parliament is still dominated by the military and its
political allies, but even military men appeared pleased to see the veteran
activist, despite NLD plans to ease them out of the legislature by scrapping a
constitutional provision granting them a quarter of seats.
"It's good that she arrived today, we all welcome
her," said Brigadier General Wai Lin.
MPs have a number of pressing issues on the table for
discussion during the current session, which began last Wednesday.
Communal violence in June between ethnic Buddhist Rakhine
and Muslim Rohingya, which left dozens dead and tens of thousands homeless, is
on the agenda, with an ongoing state of emergency requiring parliamentary
approval.
A new foreign investment law aimed at resuscitating the
country's moribund economy is also in the pipeline.
Suu Kyi on Tuesday pledged her party will join "the
legislative concert" and push for greater transparency once inside
parliament.
The party's involvement in mainstream politics comes as a
result of sweeping changes by a new regime, including the release of hundreds
of political prisoners, liberalising sections of the nation's battered economy
and tentative ceasefires with several major armed ethnic rebel groups.
But the government came under fire from other activists
last week after authorities in the country on Friday briefly detained around 20
student leaders ahead of the 50th anniversary of a brutal suppression of a
student protests.
They were freed late Saturday.
- AFP/cc
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