Suu Kyi to make parliament debut on April 23

Myanmar Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been invited to make her debut in parliament in two weeks, her party said yesterday, following a historic landslide victory for her and other party members in by-elections.
The veteran dissident's National League for Democracy (NLD), which won 43 seats in April 1 by-elections, will be the main opposition force in a national parliament dominated by the military and its political allies, reports AFP.
Party spokesman Nyan Win said Suu Kyi and 36 other National League for Democracy (NLD) candidates who won parliament seats had been asked to go to the capital, Naypyitaw, for the resumption of the house session, which initially was not expected to include the newly elected members.
The 66-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate's appearance in Myanmar's parliament will mark one of the biggest leaps forward for a country that was ruled by iron-fisted generals for five decades until a year ago, reports Reuters.
The NLD won 43 of 45 seats contested in the April 1 ballots, dealing a crushing blow to the ruling military-backed party which won a 2010 general election widely deemed to have been rigged. The NLD boycotted that election.
"NLD candidates elected for the lower house including chairperson Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will attend the lower house session due to resume on April 23," Nyan Win said. Daw is a Burmese honorific.
He said the NLD's four new senators had yet to be contacted. The NLD also won two seats in regional assemblies.
The international community appears to have accepted the by-elections were free and fair and several Western countries - the United States, France and Britain among them - have given strong hints of an imminent easing of some sanctions regarding investment and provision of financial services.