New Delhi (Mizzima) – The National League for Democracy (NLD) says it wants to hold a political dialogue with the new parliamentary government for the sake of national reconciliation.

With the transfer of power to a civilian-led government on Wednesday, a new government largely made up of former military officers and ministers, the NLD said it hoped that the government would now engage in a dialogue for national reconciliation.

“We hope for a strong political dialogue’, NLD vice chairman Tin Oo said.  We want Burma to be a modern developed democratic country’. 

He noted that since 1989, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has called for a dialogue for national reconciliation, but the military government never reciprocated.

Tin Oo said he believed that even though the powerful State Peace and Development Council has now handed over political power to the parliamentary government, led by retired General Thein Sein, Than Shwe, the former commander in chief of Defense Services, will be deeply influential in the new government. 

Newly installed President Thein Sein said in his inaugural address to the Parliament on Wednesday that local and exiled political groups, which opposed the Constitution and the regime’s roadmap to democracy, had destroyed the dignity of the country. The NLD has opposed the Constitution and the ‘roadmap’. 

He said that those who want to amend the Constitution should try to amend it through Parliament in accordance with the Constitution, and the door is now open for everyone to take part in parliamentary politics.