Word: aung
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...million eligible voters mistake the military junta's decision to hold parliamentary elections as an invitation for a democratic free-for-all, the government had gone out of its way to hand every advantage to the army-backed National Unity Party. The country's leading dissident, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, 44, was barred from running for office and kept under house arrest. Other opposition politicians were similarly disqualified and detained, . and politicking was confined mostly to private homes. The day before last week's election, officials unexpectedly lifted martial law, which had been in effect since September...
...military leaders in Rangoon seemed to have considered every angle save one: if the country's first multiparty balloting in 30 years was actually clean, the ruling powers would be dealt a humiliating defeat. Early returns last week indicated that Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, took 392 of the new National Assembly's 485 contested seats. Although final results will not be available for perhaps two weeks, the army- backed party has so far claimed only nine seats. How the remaining parliamentary seats would be apportioned among the other 91 parties was not clear...
...victorious league, one of the first orders of business will be to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. She alone has the moral stature to press for the end to authoritarian rule and to halt the political factionalism that brought the military to power 28 years ago. Like the Philippines' Corazon Aquino, Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto and Nicaragua's Violeta Chamorro, Aung San Suu Kyi's moral authority stems from family history and political tragedy: her father, Aung San, was a national hero who was assassinated in 1947, on the eve of Burma's independence from Britain...
...first, Aung San Suu Kyi will need to get her own political party in order. "There's no ruling out the possibility that the National League for Democracy and the opposition in general could succumb to the old Burmese disease of factionalism," warns a Western diplomat based in Rangoon. Excessive wrangling within the league would provide the military junta with a convenient excuse to delay a transfer of power...
...opposition figure confined to her home and permitted to see only immediate relatives be elected to Parliament? The military government of Burma is taking no chances with the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since July. Last week a regional election commission barred Suu Kyi, who rose to prominence during pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988, from running in elections scheduled for late...