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    January 18, 2012

Suu Kyi Files Papers to Run for Burmese Parliament

   VOA News
   Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi waves at supporters
   during the opening ceremony of the National League for Democracy
   party's Mingalar Taung Nyunt township office in Rangoon, January 17,
   2012.
   Photo: Reuters
   Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi waves at supporters
   during the opening ceremony of the National League for Democracy
   party's Mingalar Taung Nyunt township office in Rangoon, January 17,
   2012.

   Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is formally a candidate to
   run for a parliamentary seat in an upcoming by-election.
   The Nobel Peace Prize winner registered her candidacy Wednesday to
   represent a district just outside the main city of Rangoon. She and her
   National League for Democracy party will contest the 48 parliamentary
   seats that are open in the April 1 vote.
   Suu Kyi's decision to run for parliament is the latest evidence of
   democratic reforms since a new, nominally civilian government took
   power from a decades-long military junta last March, including the
   release of hundreds of political prisoners.
   But even if the NLD wins all 48 seats in the by-election, it will not
   be enough to blunt the majority of the military-backed ruling party.
   Khin Ohmar, the coordinator for the democracy and human rights group
   Burma Partnership, said that if elected, Suu Kyi will seek to reform
   the 2008 constitution, which maintains the military's rule over the
   country. She says 25 percent of Burma's legislative seats are held by
   military officers.
   The National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in
   parliamentary elections in 1990, while Suu Kyi was under house arrest,
   but Burma's then-military rulers barred it from taking power.
   The party boycotted the 2010 elections, claiming the rules were unfair.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.