Myanmar will "seriously consider" allowing Southeast Asian observers to attend April parliamentary by-elections, President Thein Sein said, the latest sign of openness by a civilian government keen to end decades of isolation.
The president made the comment to the visiting secretary-general of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), Surin Pitsuwan, on Monday.
If observers are allowed, it would be a first for Myanmar, which held elections in November 2010 that were fraught with allegations of vote-rigging.
Although only 48 seats are up for grabs in the by-elections, they are seen as a litmus test of the new government's democratic credentials after a series of reforms that would have been inconceivable under the military dictatorship that ceded power last March.