YANGON – The political party of Myanmar’s detained pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has thanked the public for voting her “Asia’s Online Hero 2004” in an Internet poll.
Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, topped a list of 20 candidates selected by the editors of Time magazine, garnering more than 40 percent of 93,000 votes cast.
“The voters honour Suu Kyi’s determination by nominating her as Asia’s Hero, but it has to be understood that the NLD is not working for one group or for one person,” U Lwin, the party’s spokesman and secretary, told reporters. “We are working for the country and the party represents the people.”
One reader praised Suu Kyi’s struggle with Myanmar’s generals. “She is only one citizen, whom 450,000 strong soldiers are afraid of.” Wrote another, “She has remained determined and dedicated to freedom even under circumstances most of us can’t even imagine.”
Under house arrest, Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was unavailable for comment. Second and third place in the Time poll went respectively to former Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim, recently freed from prison, and the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s Buddhist leader in exile.
Net surfers inside Myanmar were apparently able to vote, even though the country’s military regime imposes tight censorship on the Internet, especially blocking sites related to political dissent.
