Suu Kyi to run for Burma’s parliament

Party spokesman Nyan Win said that the Nobel Peace Prize winner announced during a party meeting that she will seek a seat in suburban Rangoon, Burma’s largest city and her hometown.

Ms Suu Kyi’s presence will add star power and significance to upcoming by-elections that will be held nearly one year after severely restricted elections curbed a half century of military rule.

Her National League for Democracy Party decided to rejoin electoral politics amid signs that the new government is easing years of repression.

A victory would give the Nobel Peace Prize winner and long-time political prisoner a voice in parliament for the first time in her decades-long role as the country’s opposition leader.

The elections, Burma’s first in 20 years, replaced a ruling military junta with a government that remains strongly linked to the military Even if Ms Suu Kyi’s party wins all 48 seats on April 1 it will have almost no power.