02 December 2015•Update: 02 December 2015
By Josh Carroll
YANGON, Myanmar
The leader of Myanmar's opposition and the country's outgoing president have met for reconciliation talks almost one month after Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) romped home in the general election.
Presidential spokesperson Ye Htut said that the meeting in the country's capital, Nay Pyi Taw, on Wednesday lasted for 45 minutes, but there was no discussion of constitutional issues.
"We prepared to transfer power transparently one year ago," Ye Htut said, adding that authority would be transferred with the appropriate legal documents.
The NLD is set to take over from the military-backed regime next year after taking nearly 80 percent of the seats in the Nov. 8 general election, but its world-famous leader will not be allowed to become president because the constitution, drafted by the former junta, bars her from the position.
Suu Kyi, however, has vowed to be "above" the president as a means of circumventing the clause, which says no one with foreign relatives can take the job and is believed to have been written with her two sons in mind.
The new parliament is due to convene in late January. Under the 2008 constitution, 25 percent of the seats are allocated to non-elected military MPs.
The Myanmar Times reported Wednesday that the NLD leader was also due to meet the military’s commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, in the afternoon.
The meeting comes following a request by Suu Kyi for talks "in the spirit of national reconciliation" on Nov. 11 -- a request greeted with a Facebook response from Ye Htut saying that the government had agreed to meet.
"After the Union Election Commission’s tasks are completed, both sides will arrange talks," he said.
