Suu Kyi hits election campaign trail

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi hit the campaign trail near her hometown of Yangon on Saturday, travelling to the constituency where she is standing for parliament for the first time. The democracy icon has already made two campaign trips outside the city ahead of April's by-elections, but this is her first day taking to the streets of the rural township of Kawhmu, where she is contesting the vote. Hundreds of cheering supporters lined the roads as her convoy left Yangon, waving flags of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party and photos of Suu Kyi and her father, Myanmar's independence hero Aung San. The NLD cannot threaten the army-backed party's ruling majority even if it wins all of the 48 available seats, but the vote has important symbolic value as the first time Suu Kyi has been able to directly participate in a Myanmar election. "I hope they will be free and fair. There have been a few hitches but I hope that these will be sorted out," she told AFP on Friday. A widely-expected win for Suu Kyi would lend strong legitimacy to the country's parliament, which first convened early last year and is dominated by former generals who kept her in detention for much of the past two decades. The NLD won a landslide victory in an election in 1990, but the then-ruling junta never allowed the party to take power. Suu Kyi was a figurehead for the party's campaign despite being under house arrest at the time. She was released from her latest stint in detention a few days after a much-criticised election in 2010, and the upcoming polls are being held to fill places vacated by those who have since become government ministers and deputy ministers. Ahead of the campaign day, Suu Kyi insisted her party -- which boycotted the 2010 election -- was taking nothing for granted. "We will work very hard to win all 48 seats. It's not a matter of expectations, it's a matter of hard work," the Nobel Peace Prize winner said. Controversy surrounding the 2010 vote means the by-elections will be heavily scrutinised. But the new regime has impressed even sceptics with its reform process, which has included welcoming the NLD back into the political mainstream and signing ceasefire deals with ethnic minority rebels. The release of hundreds of political prisoners has been particularly welcomed by Western powers -- which imposed strict sanctions on Myanmar -- leading the United States to begin restoring full diplomatic relations. On Monday, Washington also announced a waiver to allow it to support assessments in the country by international financial institutions including the World Bank. Despite Myanmar's progress, the brief detention of a leading dissident monk on Friday sparked concern among observers, coming less than a month after his release from a jail term imposed for his role in a 2007 anti-junta uprising.