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Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged disappointment over the state of her country after one year in office, saying she is prepared to step down if people are dissatisfied with her leadership.
Key points:
- Aung San Suu Kyi's party had a landslide election win last year
- Many believe her Government hasn't lived up to high expectations
- Aung San Suu Kyi delivered a 25-minute televised speech
Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy took power amid high expectations after a landslide election victory which ended five decades of army rule in the impoverished country.
While her Government has enacted major reforms, many believe its performance has fallen short of high expectations.
Economic growth has not provided many benefits to the country's poor majority, and ethnic minorities are seeking greater autonomy.
"When I joined politics, I said 'I promise one thing: that I will do my best'. That's all. I can't do better than that," Ms Suu Kyi said in a 25-minute televised speech.
"So, if you all think I am not good enough for our country and our people, if someone or some organisation can do better than us, we are ready to step down."
But Ms Suu Kyi's party faces few threats from rivals, and the largest opposition bloc, composed of the military and its allies, remains generally unpopular.
Myanmar's citizens are also aware that her Government is limited by an army-imposed constitution that gives the military veto power over most substantive legislation, making real change difficult.
Suu Kyi rejects international commission
Ms Suu Kyi also reiterated her Government's stance that Myanmar will not accept an international investigating commission to look into communal tensions in the western state of Rakhine, where the Muslim Rohingya minority faces severe discrimination and what the United Nations calls major human rights violations during army sweeps seeking insurgents.
The UN Human Rights Council recently called for an independent international body to look into the issue, but Myanmar officials have insisted their own investigations are sufficient.
Ms Suu Kyi's office announced after her speech that five ethnic minority factions agreed to sign a ceasefire agreement her Government promoted.
Many of the ethnic groups have been conducting on-again, off-again armed struggle for autonomy since Myanmar — then called Burma — became independent from Britain in 1948.
Several of the larger and more powerful ethnic guerrilla armies have not signed the ceasefire pact.
AP
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, religion-and-beliefs, burma, asia