SEOUL, April 29 (Yonhap) -- Myanmar should consider a presidential bid from the country's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from a point of national interest, not individual, its parliamentary speaker said Wednesday.
The remarks by U Khin Aung Myint, the upper chamber speaker of Myanmar's bicameral legislature, are seen as indirect opposition to ongoing efforts for constitutional revision to allow Suu Kyi to run for president later this year.
The democracy icon of the Southeast Asian country is currently banned from the elections as the constitution prohibits anyone with offspring of foreign nationality from running for president. Her sons have British citizenship.
"We should look at this problem not from the point of one individual, but from the point of the national interest of the country as a whole," said the speaker, a member of the six-party talks on constitutional reform, in an interview with Yonhap News Agency. "In the process of transforming democracy, there should not be an emphasis on one or another person over the process of deciding the fate of the country as a whole."
U Khin Aung Myint was in Seoul this week to meet with Chung Eui-hwa, the speaker of the unicameral National Assembly and other officials to discuss bilateral cooperation.
The Myanmar speaker is one of the six negotiators involved in the amendment discussion convened ahead of the country's landmark general elections set for late 2015.
"This upcoming election will be the second in our democratic reform process so therefore it is very important for the country, for the elections and post-election period to be conducted calmly and fairly," he said.
The results of the general elections will determine much of Myanmar's future course of democratization following the Southeast Asian country's recent shift from military rule to a semi-civilian system.
"In my personal opinion, everybody should participate (in political leadership)," the upper-house speaker said. "Of course, Aung San Suu Kyi is an intellectual and because she has a political image inside the country, I would like her to participate in the leadership of the country as well."
No matter who becomes the next president, everybody must work toward the betterment of Myanmar with good will, he said.
During the meeting with his counterpart in Seoul, meanwhile, the South Korean side lauded Myanmar's great future potential and expressed interest in helping develop the Southeast Asian country, he added.
pbr@yna.co.kr
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http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/suu-kyi-presidential-bid-should-be-considered-in-nations-best-interest-myanmar/
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