PARIS: Myanmar President Thein Sein is not preparing to contest the 2015 presidential election and has "no objections" to Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi running, he said in an interview aired yesterday.
He was speaking to France 24 TV after the former military leader had completed a visit to London and Paris as part of a tour aimed at securing Western aid to help his country, the former Burma, emerge from decades of dictatorship.
"I have not prepared myself to run for the 2015 presidential election," he said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who visited the former military dictatorship last year, has pressed Sein to ensure the constitution is changed to allow opposition leader Suu Kyi to contest the election. A year ago, Suu Kyi was feted at home and abroad, flush from her National League for Democracy party's landslide wins in April 2012 by-elections, which swept her into parliament.
But to emerge as president after the election, the 68-year-old Suu Kyi must convince the military-dominated parliament to amend the constitution, which now bars from the presidency anyone married to a foreigner or who has children who are foreign citizens.
Suu Kyi and her late husband, British academic Michael Aris, had two children who are British.
Sein said the constitution was amendable, but added it was up to lawmakers to decide on amendments and if needed the provisions required would have to be put to a referendum. Reuters
Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2013/07/20/sein-says-not-seeking-re-election-peninsula-on/
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