Myanmar opposition party kicks off its first congress

Yangon - Myanmar's main opposition party, headed by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, kicked off a three-day congress Friday to elect new leaders in preparation for 2015 general elections.

More than 800 members of the National League for Democracy(NLD) gathered in Yangon for the first congress since it was founded in 1988, the offspring of a pro-democracy movement that ended with an army crackdown that killed 3,000 people.

Suu Kyi, 67, who spent 15 years under house detention from 1989 to2010, was absent from Friday’s session because she was at parliament in the capital, Naypyitaw, but she would attend the conference Saturday, an NLD official said.

The NLD is to elect a central committee, central executive committee and party leader. All party leaders had been appointed in the past.

Deputy NLD leader Tin Oo opened the congress with a call for unity.//DPA