Opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday she was prepared to lead Myanmar’s next government should her National League for Democracy party win elections on November 8, even though the constitution bars her from becoming the next president.
“I will be above the president,” Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told more than 400 foreign and Myanmar journalists who had gathered at her lakeside Yangon home where she spent a total of 15 years under house arrest during junta rule.
The 2008 military drafted constitution bars the NLD leader from becoming president because her late husband and two sons are foreigners.
Under Myanmar’s constitution the president is elected by an electoral college comprising elected representatives of the upper and lower houses of parliament and non-elected military MPs.
The president is selected from among a candidates proposed by each of the three groups. Citizens who have foreign spouses or offspring are ineligible for contest the presidency.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has often said that she would find a way around the clause to lead the country should the NLD win.
The NLD won the 1990 polls by a landslide and won 43 out of 44 seats it contested in the by-election of April, 2012, in which Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was also elected to parliament.
The NLD boycotted the 2010 general election.
Asked about electoral fraud in the current election, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said there was evidence of collusion between the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party and election authorites.
“According to reports coming in about advance voting, there is evidence of extensive collusion between the USDP, the administration and Union Election Commission,” she said.
“If we win the election, I want to take action about this as soon as possible.”
