Born: June 19, 1945 (Rangoon, British Burma)
Biography:
Aung San Suu Kyi, sometimes abbreviated to Suu Kyi, is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She served as the State Counsellor of Myanmar and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2021. Suu Kyi has been the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) since its founding in 1988 and was registered as its chairperson from 2011 to 2023.
Suu Kyi was born on June 19, 1945, in Rangoon, British Burma. She is the youngest daughter of Aung San, known as the Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar, and Khin Kyi. After graduating from the University of Delhi in 1964 and St Hugh’s College, Oxford in 1968, she worked at the United Nations for three years. In 1972, Suu Kyi married Michael Aris, and together they had two children.
Suu Kyi’s rise to prominence came during the 8888 Uprising on August 8, 1988. She became the General Secretary of the newly formed NLD, with the support of retired army officials who criticized the military junta. In the 1990 elections, the NLD won an overwhelming majority of the seats in Parliament, but the military government (the State Peace and Development Council – SPDC) refused to hand over power, resulting in international outrage.
Despite her victory, Suu Kyi was detained before the elections and spent almost 15 years under house arrest from 1989 to 2010. During that time, she became one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners. In 1999, Time magazine named her one of the Children of Gandhi and his spiritual heir to nonviolence. Suu Kyi also survived an assassination attempt during the 2003 Depayin massacre, where at least 70 people associated with the NLD were killed.
In the 2010 elections, Suu Kyi’s party boycotted, resulting in a decisive win for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). However, in the 2012 by-elections, the NLD won 43 of the 45 vacant seats, and Suu Kyi became a Pyithu Hluttaw MP. The NLD’s momentum continued in the 2015 elections, where the party scored a landslide victory and secured 86% of the seats in the Assembly of the Union, more than enough to ensure the election of its preferred candidates for president and vice president.
Although Suu Kyi was prevented from becoming the president due to a constitutional clause that barred individuals with foreign family members from assuming the role, she assumed the newly created position of State Counsellor of Myanmar. Throughout her political career, she played a vital role in Myanmar’s transition from a military junta to partial democracy in the 2010s.