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  • Fast changing Myanmar has made its latest piece of history

  • with the launch of the first civilian dominated parliament for more than 50 years.

  • Hundreds of new MPs from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for democracy,

  • including formal political prisoners gathered in the vast legislature of complex in the military built capital city of Naypyidaw.

  • The sitting launch is what could be weeks of debate and deal making to choose a president to lead the new government.

  • It was a thrilling day for MPs swept to power by the trouncing delivered in November by the NLD

  • to the military back union solidarity and development party,

  • which had dominated the previous parliament after the ruling junta stepped down in 2011,

  • after almost half a century in power.

  • We are new. This parliament is better than the first one.

  • We can do more, we can try more, and we can try for the best.

  • The NLD captured of about 80% of the available seats. It's enough to give them the majority,

  • even though a quarter of the seats are reserved for the military.

  • It also means the NLD block will have control over parliament's choice of president to succeed Thein Sein.

  • The ex-general, who had led the country for the past five years.

  • All eyes are now on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi.

  • The new parliament caps her remarkable journey from an old election victory in 1990

  • and the 15 years and the house arrest that followed.

  • She is constitutionally barred from the highest office herself

  • because her two sons by her late British husband holds foreign passports.

  • Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has declared that she will appoint to figurehead president and make the decisions herself.

  • But Myanmar's transition has been so remarkable that

  • some observers still don't rule out last attempt for her to take the prize herself.

  • Michael Peel, Financial Times.

Fast changing Myanmar has made its latest piece of history

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