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Bangkok: In Myanmar's most dramatic change in more than 50 years fresh-faced MPs loyal to Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi filed into a grandiose Parliament to form the country's new ruling party on Monday – 115 of them former political prisoners who spent years shackled in the country's decrepit jails.
Hundreds of novice politicians including poets, singers, writers, lawyers, teachers and doctors took seats alongside representatives of a military dictatorship whose proxy party was swept from office at historic elections last November.
Expectations are high for "The Lady" – as 70 year-old Ms Suu Kyi is known – as she takes charge of one of Asia's poorest countries that corrupt, ruthless, paranoid and superstitious soldiers ruled for five decades.
But Ms Suu Kyi, the daughter of assassinated independence hero Aung San, has remained guarded as she has negotiated the terms of her rule with a still powerful military which under the constitution is automatically handed 25 per cent of seats in Parliament.
In 1990 Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won an election in a landslide but the military annulled the result and put her under house arrest for more than 15 years.
Ms Suu Kyi remained silent as the outgoing military-dominated government approved laws granting immunity to military leaders, some of whom have been accused of gross human rights abuses and who control vast business conglomerates that dominate the country's economy.
She has held two meetings with Army commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing since the election, suggesting she is seeking a compromise with the military known as Tatmadaw that will control the three key ministries of defence, border control and home affairs.
But despite Ms Suu Kyi winning 80 per cent of elected seats at the November election it remains unclear who will become president, a position that holds sweeping powers.
She is banned under a military-written constitution from becoming president because her two sons are not Myanmar citizens.
Ms Suu Kyi has declared she will rule the country "above the president," which prominent Myanmar-based commentator Larry Jagan says could cause friction with the military which is used to clear command-and-control structures.
There have also been long-running rumours the military might agree to waive the constitutional clause barring Ms Suu Kyi from the presidency in return for other concessions.
Her closest allies and senior military figures have been holding secret talks for months but neither side has disclosed details.
Mr Jagan believes the most likely scenario is that Ms Suu Kyi will anoint a trusted aide to be a figure-head president who will answer to her.
Aung Zaw, founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine, said 386 non-elected military personnel appointed or re-appointed to the country's three levels of Parliament are preparing to take on Ms Suu Kyi's party and will operate as the largest opposition bloc.
The challenges facing the new government appear daunting, despite the expectations of the country's 51 million people.
The NLD's economic goals remain sketchy.
Most of the party's MPs are new to politics and unfamiliar with parliamentary procedures.
Military rule has left a legacy of ravaged education, health care, infrastructure and state institutions while ethnic minority wars disrupt border areas.
Ms Suu Kyi has nominated deputy parliamentary speakers from the defeated Union Solidarity and Development Party and the Arakan National Party, one of the better performing ethnic parties in the election, in a gesture towards unity and reconciliation.
But rights groups worry she will continue institutional policies that have resulted in ethnic tensions and violence, including the persecution of minority Rohingya Muslims in western Rakhine state.
The army will be central to any peace deals with the minorities.
"We are not optimistic that elections will lessen the plight for the Rohingya," said Matthew Smith, executive director of the human rights group, Fortify Rights.
Monday's sitting of Parliament is the first step in a drawn-out transition which will culminate in the new government officially starting its term in April.
Over the next few weeks Parliament's upper house, lower house and the military bloc will nominate one presidential candidate each.
The combined houses will then vote on the three candidates.
With 390 seats in the two-chamber 664-seat Parliament the NLD will easily have the numbers to name the new president.
