Myanmar house begins new session
Hundreds of newly-elected lawmakers, many of them from Aung Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), have opened a parliamentary session in Myanmar to install a government, after half a century of military-only rule in the Asian country.
Suu Kyi led her party into the parliament on Monday, 25 years after she won a parliamentary majority that was annulled by the military leadership in 1990.
NLD won 80 percent of the seats during a general election in November 2015, qualifying it to form a government. The military reserved a quarter of total seats.
The new parliament will choose a new president, chairman, the speakers and deputy speakers of both the lower and upper houses. The identity of the next presidential candidates still remains secret.
"We don't know exactly when the presidential election will happen. We cannot tell you anything about who will be nominated as the presidential candidates as well," said Zayar Thaw, an NLD legislator.
Suu Kyi, who spent years under house arrest, is barred by an army-drafted constitution from taking the presidency, but her overwhelming majority in both houses of parliament allows her to choose the president from her loyalist circles. She will announce her candidate later this month.
She has said that her party’s victory places her “above the president,” and vowed to rule from behind the scenes through a proxy.
On Friday, outgoing president Thein Sein, who will stand down in March or April, urged the members of the old government to "cooperate with the next government to bring peace and development to the country."
Despite NLD's landslide victory, the military still retains significant control in the Southeast Asian country. It retains control of the important home affairs, border affairs and defense ministries.
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