Known affectionately to Burmese as "The Lady," or "Daw Suu (Auntie Suu)," Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday reversed her initial boycott of Myanmar's parliament after a public outcry from supporters keen for her join parliament, 22 years after she won a general election but was denied office. The legislature requires an oath to the country's constitution, a document Aung San Suu Kyi aims to amend.
She should have taken office long ago, as her party won a 1990 election in landslide, but the result was ignored by the army. Before that, her rise to prominence as the leader of then-Burma's pro-democracy movement in 1988 was met with stern, often brutal opposition from the country's military rulers.
Her marriage to a British academic, anthropologist Michael Aris, was also used justification to keep her out, ruling that anyone married to a foreigner was barred from office.
