Ill health forced Aung San Suu Kyi to abruptly cancel further campaign travel, her party said on Sunday, just a week before Myanmar byelections that are seen as a key test of regime reforms.
The Nobel laureate, who is running for a seat in parliament in the April 1 polls, was put on a drip and ordered to rest by her personal doctor after falling ill in the town of Myeik in the far south of Myanmar.
But the democracy icon pressed ahead with a final rally in the remote area on Sunday and was cheered by tens of thousands of people as she urged supporters to vote for her National League for Democracy party.
“I’m trying to keep in good health,” she told the crowd. NLD deputy information officer Kyi Toe said Suu Kyi’s health had “deteriorated” during the trip and she now planned to return to her home in Yangon later today.
“According to the advice of her family doctor Tin Myo Win, she will take a rest at home. She should not travel far for trips anymore,” he said.
Kyi Toe said she has now scrapped plans for a final campaign trip on Tuesday to Magway, the central Myanmar region where her independence hero father was born.
Suu Kyi fell ill on Saturday after the boat she was travelling in got stuck on a sandbank for several hours, Tin Myo Win said earlier.
“She is exhausted because of being on the boat for such a long time,” he said, adding that she had low blood pressure and had been vomiting.
The polls are the first time the democracy icon has been able to stand for election in Myanmar and are viewed as a key test of the new government’s commitment to budding reforms that have surprised observers of the country, which has been dominated by the military for decades.
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