Lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party were sworn into Myanmar's parliament on Monday, setting the stage for the first democratically elected president to take office in 50 years.
The NLD won about 80 percent of the elected seats in election in November, giving it an overwhelming majority in the parliament.
Many of the elected MPs who took oath on Monday morning were political prisoners during various military governments in the past several decades.
"It's the second time I have been elected but this time it feels different, because the NLD is majority. It's an overwhelming majority... "NLD lawmaker U Min Oo said, according to the Guardian, recollecting the 1990 election which the NLD had won.
Though Suu Kyi's party has clear majority she will have to share power with the military junta. The constitution also proscribes Suu Kyi from becoming the president as her sons hold British citizenship.
Win Myint, a close aide to Suu Kyi, was elected as the speaker of the lower house while T Khun Myat, a member of the outgoing government, was made the deputy speaker as part of the power sharing formula laid down in the constitution.
Under the constitution, 25 percent of the seats in the parliament are reserved for the military.
The swearing-in of the lawmakers has set the stage for the presidential election and party officials have said they will be able to choose a president in the second half of the month. A government led by the NLD will come to power only in April, after current president Thein Sein steps down at the end of March.
Tough challenge
Suu Kyi hasn't revealed who will the new president, but had said she will be "above the president", and will have direct control of the government.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero General Aung San, spent 15 years in hose arrest after her party won a majority in parliamentary elections in 1990.
For Suu Kyi, the toughest part of the glorious struggle for democracy will be to meet the sky-high expectations of the southeast Asian country's 51.5 million people.
"They (people) hope that every problem will be solved automatically after the NLD becomes the government, FDI will come in," a leader close to the 7-year-old leader said, according to Reuters.
