NLD Members Request Meeting With Detained Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

By The Irrawaddy 16 March 2023

Sources close to Myanmar regime officials have said that members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) Party have recently requested a meeting with their detained leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The ousted State Counselor is being held in a jail in the capital Naypyitaw, where she is serving a 33 year sentence after the junta prosecuted her on over a dozen charges.

Observers have suggested that the request for a meeting with Suu Kyi likely concerns whether the NLD should register under the military regime’s new law for political parties. All parties have until March 28 to register or risk being disbanded. However, the NLD has already said that it won’t register under the new law.

The Irrawaddy understands that junta officials have yet to grant the request for a meeting with Suu Kyi.

“She [Suu Kyi] said that the NLD will be there as long as the people are. The NLD doesn’t need to register with the regime to be a party,” said a senior NLD member, referring to what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told the people following the junta’s plan to dissolve the party after the 2021 coup. The regime has alleged that the NLD’s landslide victory in the 2020 general election was due to voter fraud.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is currently being held in solitary confinement in Naypyitaw Prison. She hasn’t met her legal team since she was found guilty on all the charges the regime brought against her.

Last year, the junta is reported to have arranged for two NLD members to meet Suu Kyi to try and persuade her of the regime’s plan for a general election.

Suu Kyi was reportedly furious after the meeting and dismissed the proposal.