NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar’s parliament will consider amending the country’s constitution — which currently bars opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president — ahead of crucial elections next year, according to an official.

Suu Kyi is trying to change key sections of Myanmar’s charter ahead of 2015 polls that are widely expected to be won by her National League for Democracy (NLD), if they are free and fair, after decades of disastrous military rule.

The move to moot constitutional reform was discussed during unprecedented talks between President Thein Sein and his political rivals, including Suu Kyi, as well as top army brass and election officials.

“They agreed to discuss the issue of amending the constitution in parliament, according to the law,” presidential spokesman Ye Htut told reporters after the meeting in the capital Naypyidaw on Friday.

The NLD has focused on altering a provision in the constitution that ensures the military in the former junta-ruled nation has a veto on any amendment to the charter.

It believes revising the clause will open the way for further changes to other constitutional provisions, including the ring-fenced proportion of soldiers in parliament and the effective bar on Suu Kyi leading the country.

Ye Htut did not elaborate on which elements of the constitution were up for debate.

As it stands, Suu Kyi is ineligible to become president because of a clause in the 2008 charter blocking anyone whose spouse or children are overseas citizens from leading the country. The Nobel laureate’s late husband was British, as are her two sons.

To alter the constitution there needs to be support from a 75 per cent majority in parliament, and as unelected soldiers make up a quarter of the legislature they have the last say on any changes.

The extraordinary talks on Friday — the first of its kind as the nation emerges from decades of outright military rule — saw Thein Sein and Suu Kyi walk into the meeting together.

The discussions, which lasted for more than two hours, came a day after the White House said US President Barack Obama spoke to Thein Sein and Suu Kyi about the elections, which are seen as a key test of democratic reforms under the quasi-civilian government.

The US leader will visit Myanmar in a fortnight’s time for a major regional conference.

Last week Myanmar authorities announced that landmark polls would be held in the final week of October or the first week of November 2015.

Myanmar’s previous general election in 2010 was marred by widespread accusations of cheating and was held without Suu Kyi, who was kept under lock and key until days after the vote, or her NLD party.

The polls came as the military relinquished its outright control of the government, after decades of misrule in which they turned Myanmar into a diplomatic pariah and drove the economy into the ground.

Published in Dawn, November 1st , 2014