Naypyidaw, Myanmar--Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday refused to rule out a boycott of looming elections as she cast doubt over the likelihood of key changes to a charter that bans her from running for president.
Her country is bracing for elections later this year seen as a vital test of democratic reforms in a nation that was until recently straitjacketed by decades of junta rule.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party wants to amend constitutional clauses that block their leader from the presidency and hands a crucial say over changes to the charter to the military, which holds a quarter of parliamentary seats.
The NLD is expected to hoover up votes in November's election, the first countrywide poll that the party will have contested in 25 years.
But Suu Kyi failed to offer reassurances her party would participate in the polls, as the NLD struggles to amend the charter to allow her to take the top job.
"We are not closing off any options. No one can know what will happen, so we have to calculate for every possibility," she told reporters in the capital Naypyidaw.
A provision in the current junta-era constitution bars those with a foreign spouse or children from the presidency.
The 69-year-old's two sons are British, as was her late husband and Suu Kyi believes the rule was crafted specifically to block her pathway to the top office.
She has received support, including from US president Barack Obama, for her move to change the constitution.
But observers say she has accepted that it is unlikely she will be able to become president immediately after elections, which are slated for November.
AFP
