Huge Myanmar crowds greet Suu Kyi in Mandalay

  03 March 2012   MANDALAY, Myanmar: Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was greeted by the largest crowds of her election campaign so far as she toured the second largest city of Mandalay on Saturday.
Tens of thousands cheered on the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and hundreds of vehicles followed her convoy as it made its way from the airport to downtown Mandalay, in central Myanmar, where she was due to deliver a speech.



Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Mandalay

Former political prisoner Suu Kyi is visiting various parts of the country as her National League for Democracy (NLD) party prepares for by-elections on April 1 that will see her stand for parliament for the first time.

Her decision to run for a seat, in a constituency near Yangon, is the clearest sign yet of the surprising change taking place in Myanmar since an army-backed government replaced decades of outright military rule last year.

Although the opposition cannot threaten the ruling party's majority, even if it takes all 48 seats up for grabs in April, the by-election is seen as a key test of the new regime's commitment to reform.

Suu Kyi's NLD party won a landslide victory in an election in 1990, but the then-ruling junta never allowed the party to take power.

The next election 20 years later swept the army's political allies to power but was marred by widespread complaints of cheating and by the absence of Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest at the time and released a few days later.

- AFP/cc

 http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1186736/1/.html