BURMESE OPPOSITION LEADER Aung San Suu Kyi has formally registered her political party for upcoming elections.

The move is a crucial one for the military dictatorship: Aung San Suu Kyi had maintained a political boycott of elections in the country.

Her party, the National League for Democracy, had been broken up last year by the country’s military dictatorship because it refused to adhere to a law which would have stopped many of its members from becoming parliamentarians.

That law has since been repealed – paving the way for Suu Kyi and the NLD to officially run in the country’s upcoming elections. A date has not yet been set for the elections.

Earlier this week, the Burmese opposition leader held her first official meeting with a head of government from the region when she met with Thailand’s prime minister.

She also met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this month, as part of an ongoing international campaign to increase pressure on the ruling military junta.

Last month Barack Obama said that there have been “flickers of hope” in the country in recent months.

Aung San Suu Kyi was released last year having spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest.

The NLD won a general election in 1990 – but were barred from taking power by the army, which instead cracked down on political dissenters. Suu Kyi, the biggest threat to the military’s authority, was placed under house arrest.

- Additional reporting by Associated Press

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