Singer, ex-prisoner join Myanmar polls

A hip hop singer and a recently freed political prisoner are among candidates launching bids for seats in Myanmar’s parliament alongside opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her party said yesterday.
A list of 48 candidates released by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) indicates the party plans to contest every seat available in the April 1 by-election.
Suu Kyi on Wednesday officially registered for the vote, the first ever that she will personally contest.
The polls are seen as a major test of the reform agenda of the new army-backed government, which replaced outright military rule last year.
Sandar Min, part of the “88 Generation” student group that led a failed 1988 uprising against the junta, is to participate after being set free last week in the most significant political prisoner amnesty yet under the new government.
Fellow 88 Generation activist and former political prisoner, Phyo Min Thein, is also running.
Hip hop singer Zeya Thaw, who is part of the “Generation Wave” youth movement that advocated a boycott of the November 2010 election through subversive street art, poetry and music, is another candidate for the NLD.
“There will be no promises. The main thing is to encourage people to participate in the political process,” said Phyu Phyu Thin, 40, a candidate and longtime NLD member.
She said freed “88 Generation” group dissidents, had “become a force for us”.
Suu Kyi’s party won an election in 1990 by a landslide, while the democracy icon remained under house arrest, but the ruling generals ignored the result.
The number of seats up for grabs in the coming vote are not enough to threaten the resounding majority held by the ruling party, but Suu Kyi’s participation would add credibility to the legislature.
By-election campaigning is set to begin on February 10.