Burma’s Elections a Test for Reforms
30 March 2012
Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, left, gives her speech beside a candidate for the National League for Democracy party in Yangon.
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
Burma is holding elections on Sunday. Voters will fill forty-five seats in elections for the national legislature or parliament.
This will be the first vote in the country since the end of almost fifty years of military rule. Yet the armed forces still have strong influence over the government. One-fourth of the seats are for military appointees.
Burma’s legislature has four hundred forty seats in the lower house and a two hundred twenty-four seat Senate.
Two years ago, the Union Solidarity and Development Party won seventy-six percent of the vote in the most recent elections. Since then, the government has eased restrictions on the media and freed hundreds of political prisoners.
It also released the country’s most famous opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from house arrest. These developments have led to positive reactions from western countries, including the United States. Late last year, Hillary Clinton became the first American Secretary of State to visit Burma in fifty years.
Aung Zaw is with the online newspaper, “The Irrawaddy.” He recently visited Burma after living in exile for twenty years. He says many Burmese are guarded about the reforms.
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