Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s decades-long battle to bring democracy to Myanmar is likely to come to fruition on Thursday with a whimper, not a bang. Despite leading her party to a smashing election victory last year, she seems certain not to become her country’s leader.
After years of struggle and sacrifice by Suu Kyi and her legions of followers, it will be as much an anticlimax as a historical watershed when her National league for Democracy party takes over the reins of government April 1 from the military-backed party that’s been in power since 2011.
In practical terms, the new president will become known on Thursday, when the upper and lower houses of parliament and the military bloc that holds a constitutionally mandated 25 per cent of seats will nominate their presidential candidates. But until those nominations, virtually no one outside of Suu Kyi’s inner circle knows who will be the country’s next leader.
The new president is virtually certain to be from Suu Kyi’s party, since it holds majorities in both chambers of parliament, giving it not only the right to make two nominations but the numbers to pick the winner. The two runners-up become the country’s vice-presidents.