国际英语新闻:Parliament stands as place to serve for interest of country, people: Aung San Suu Kyi

NAY PYI TAW, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Aung San Suu Kyi , Leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), stressed on Monday that Myanmar's parliament is a place where lawmakers are to serve for the interest of the country and its people as much as possible.

Addressing at a five-day workshop on parliamentary undertakings in Nay Pyi Taw, Suu Kyi said "All of us are MPs attending the parliament to represent the people in the country. Parliament is not the place to be used for self-interest."

Attending at the workshop were Speaker of the House of Representatives (Lower house) U Win Myint and Speaker of the House of Nationalities (Upper House) U Mann Win Khaing Than, among more than 450 MPs.

A total of 18 current and former foreign lawmakers are set to give training to the freshers.

Meanwhile, the first sessions of the new Houses at three levels began on Feb. 1, coming nearly three months after the end of the general election on Nov. 8, 2015, in which the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the absolute majority of the parliamentary seats in competing mainly against the former ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Out of a total of 1,150 parliamentary seats at three levels of parliament, NLD dominated with 886 or 77 percent.

It was shared by 255 or 79 percent in the House of Representatives (Lower House), 135 or 80 percent in the House of Nationalities (Upper House) and 496 or 75.7 percent in the Region or State Parliament as well as 17 ethnic representatives to the Region or State Parliament.