Yangon: Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi's party said on Tuesday that more than 100 senior members would
gather in Yangon next week to decide whether to rejoin the
official political arena.
The National League for Democracy (NLD), delisted last
year for boycotting a rare election, will consider
re-registering as a political party on November 18, after
Myanmar's president last week approved changes to related
laws.
"More than 100 members of the central committee from
around the country will attend," NLD spokesman Han Thar Myint
said after a meeting of the highest level members at Suu Kyi's
house in Yangon.
"We will ask them for their opinion on whether to
register and then decide."
The NLD won a 1990 election but was never allowed to take
office. It shunned last year's vote largely because of rules
that would have forced it to expel imprisoned members. Suu Kyi
was under house arrest at the time.
She was released a few days after last November's poll,
which was widely condemned as a farce by the West and marred
by claims of cheating.
While Myanmar is now ruled by a nominally civilian
government, its ranks are filled with former generals.
The new military-backed administration has surprised
critics with a series of reformist moves, such as defying ally
China by freezing work on an unpopular mega-dam in the north,
and holding direct talks with Suu Kyi.
An amendment to a law on political parties, endorsed by
President Thein Sein on Friday, also removed the condition
that all parties must agree to "preserve" the country's 2008
constitution, according to state media.
Suu Kyi -- who strongly criticised the constitution, part
of what the regime called its "road map to democracy" -- is
expected to hold a press conference on Monday to mark the
first anniversary of her release.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, November 08, 2011, 18:45