YANGON, (Reuters) – Standing next to Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, U.S. President Barack Obama said yesterday that the law barring her from becoming president “doesn’t make much sense”.
It was the clearest statement Obama has made on Suu Kyi’s political future, but he stopped short of explicitly urging that changes be made to allow her to run for the presidency.
Washington has pressed for more change in Myanmar, where political and economic reforms launched two years ago seem to have stalled and taken the sheen off what was seen as a rare foreign policy achievement for Obama.
The United States has signalled its willingness to let the transition take shape and has avoided specific demands. Nevertheless, Obama has told President Thein Sein that the next election, due in 2015, needs to be fair, inclusive and transparent.
“I don’t understand a provision that would bar someone from being president because of who their children are – that doesn’t make much sense to me,” Obama told reporters outside Suu Kyi’s lakeside home in Yangon without naming her.
Suu Kyi, like Obama a Nobel laureate, is barred from contesting for president in next year’s election because her two sons are foreign nationals.
