SAGAING, Burma — Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi insisted Sunday she was back to good health as she pressed on with her election campaign despite falling ill during a huge rally a day earlier.
A tired-looking Suu Kyi was hailed by crowds of well-wishers shouting “May Daw [Aunty] Suu be in good health,” as she toured the region around the second biggest city Mandalay on her second day in the area.
“I did not feel well yesterday [Saturday] but because of the people’s kindness I feel better today. I am well now,” she told tens of thousands of people who had gathered to hear her speak in Sagaing city, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Mandalay.
On Saturday the 66 year old, who is traveling with two personal doctors, was forced to take a break during her speech to more than 100,000 people — the largest crowd of her election campaign so far.
Sources from her pꦦarty said she had vomited several times before retur🐻ning to the stage.
Suu Kyi, whose decision to run for parliament in April 1 local 🍒elections is seen as the clearest sign yet of reform in Burma, also known as Myanmar, used the incident as an opportunity to discuss the policies of her National League for Democracy 🌸(NLD) party.
The international icon has had a punishing travel schedule ahead of the vote and her campaign has taken her across the country, even though she is running for a seat in a constituency near her ho♑metown of Rangoon, also known as Yangon.
Suu Kyi’s NLD won a landslide victory in an election in 1990 while she was under house arrest, but the ruling junta never accepted the result and she spent much of the next two decades in detention.
Burma’s new army-backed government embarked on a series of dramatic changes since it replaced decades of outright military rule last year, including freeing political prisoners and trying to strike cease-fire deals with ethnic rebels.
The April vote is seen as a key test of th𒊎e reforms by observers after a 2010 election was marred by complaints of cheating and the absence of Suu Kyi.
But the opposition cannot threaten the ruling party’s majority, even if it takes all 48 seats up for grabs.