(MENAFN- Arab News) NAYPYIDAW: Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday she was confident her opposition party would win Myanmar's landmark elections if they are free and fair but raised concerns over the country's overall progress toward democracy.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner told AFP in an interview she expects her National League for Democracy (NLD) will secure a majority in November. It will be the first nationwide poll the NLD has contested for 25 years in a country strait-jacketed for almost half a century by military rule. The party won by a landslide in 1990 but was barred by the military from taking power.
Asked if she was confident of winning a dominant share of seats Suu Kyi replied: 'If the elections are free and fair of course.'
'I think looking at the governments which have gone before us we should be in a position to form a better government' she told AFP in some of her most sanguine comments yet as Myanmar fast approaches an election many hope will be the freest in its modern history.
Suu Kyi the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero led her opposition party into parliament after the current quasi-civilian government replaced military rule in 2011.
But Myanmar's junta-era constitution blocks her pathway to the presidency and a recent attempt to change it was quashed by the still-powerful military and its allies.