Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party youth ready to rise in ranks
Myanmar's younger opposition members urge elders to step aside for new generation as they aspire towards bigger roles and louder voice
Aung San Suu Kyi's Myanmar opposition party faced calls to inject new blood into its ageing top ranks as it opened a landmark conference dedicated to its youth wing yesterday.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner's National League for Democracy (NLD), founded after a bloody crackdown on a failed popular uprising in 1988, is preparing for key parliamentary elections next year that could sweep it to power.
Maung Maung Oo, one of the organisers of the meeting of about 150 opposition party members aged 16 to 35 - the first of its kind - said the aim was "to promote a new generation of leaders". "Not only our party, but the whole country faces a generation gap," he said.
Young activists were often at the vanguard of Myanmar's decades-old resistance to military rule, which ended in 2011 with the creation of a nominally civilian government.
But they have struggled to penetrate a fledgling post-junta parliamentary system in a country that highly values respect for elders.
"I can guess that some youths might have in their mind that it's their turn to take their places, wondering whether the elders will give up their positions," Suu Kyi said in the opening address.