Pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi

On April 1, citizens of Burma will head to the polls to vote in a parliamentary by-election. Normally, this isn’t the sort of thing that would attract a lot of headlines, since only a small number of seats in the National Assembly are actually at stake.

But these are no ordinary elections. President Thein Sein has actively invited the participation of the National League of Democracy, Burma’s main opposition party — the first time the NLD has participated in an election since the national vote in 1990 that it won in a landslide. (Burma’s military dictatorship subsequently annulled the result.) Given her immense popularity, NLD leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is almost certain to win a seat. More…