Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi brought her political challenge to the gates of her rivals Monday, campaigning for her party's candidates facing a tough battle in Myanmar's remote, military-dominated capital. Suu Kyi spoke at two rallies for candidates of her National League for Democracy, who are running in four constituencies in Naypyitaw in the April 1 by-elections.
The party is fielding candidates for all 48 seats at stake nation-wide after boycotting 2010's general election as unfair. In this stronghold of the ruling army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, she said she had faith in the area's residents. All four NLD candidates in Naypyitaw are veteran political activists, and two of them were released from prison only in January under an amnesty for political detainees. One of them, 30-year-old Zeyar Thaw, is also a former popular hip-hop singer.
The seats they are contesting were vacated last year by senior members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party who took senior government positions: President Thein Sein, Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo, Lower House Speaker Thura Shwe Mann and Agriculture Minister Myint Hlaing.
Naypyitaw is a stronghold for the government party. It was custom-built in a backwater area of the country just a decade ago under the then-ruling military junta. It officially replaced Yangon as the capital in 2005 after it was populated with relocated civil servants and a large military base.
Sandar Min, 44, is a former student activist who is the NLD candidate for the lower house seat from Zabu Thiri constituency vacated by Thein Sein, whose moves toward political liberalisation after decades of military repression succeeded in luring Suu Kyi's party back into electoral politics. The NLD had won a 1990 general election but was not allowed by the military to take power. It boycotted the 2010 election, complaining that it was being held under unfair and undemocratic conditions.
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