National League for Democracy (NLD), The

The National League for Democracy was formed during the popular revolutions of 1988 and emerged as the major opposition party in 1990 elections. Although its leader Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time of the elections, the party won 392 of the 447 seats in parliament that were contested. Their victory stunned Myanmar’s military leaders, who promptly invalidated the election results and refused to hand over power.

More recently, the NLD won almost all of the seats contested in a 2012 election for parliament, although the total number of seats at stake in that election were fewer than five percent of the total seats in parliament. Aung San Suu Kyi herself won a seat in parliament and has signaled her intention to run for president in 2015.

Sources

Human Rights Watch. “Burma: By-elections a step, but not real reform.” Accessed July 10, 2013.