Dominated by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, Myanmar's parliament has begun a new and historic session that will install the country's first democratically elected government in more than 50 years.
The National League for Democracy won a landslide in November 8 elections, winning 80 per cent of the seats in the two houses of parliament to defeat the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.
Legislators from the two parties and from smaller ethnic minority parties as well as nominated military representatives filed into the cavernous parliament for the session in which the members took a joint oath of office.
It marks an historic turnaround for the NLD, which for years was suppressed by the military, which had ruled the country directly or indirectly after seizing power in 1962.
NLD leaders including Suu Kyi and other critics were jailed and overt political activity was crushed.
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The Southeast Asian nation started moving away from dictatorship toward democracy in 2011, when the military rulers agreed to hand over power to a nominally civilian government headed by President Thein Sein, a general turned reformist.
He will stand down in late March or early April when an NLD president takes over.
Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from taking the presidency and has vowed to rule from behind the scenes through a proxy.
She has not announced who her party will nominate for president.
"We don't know exactly when the presidential election will happen. We cannot tell you anything about who will be nominated as well," said Zayar Thaw, an NLD legislator.
Despite its landslide victory, the NLD in practice will have to share power with the military, for which the constitution reserves 25 per cent of seats.
Suu Kyi has met with senior military leaders to try to ensure a smooth change of government and they have vowed not to interfere.
Thein Sein's military-backed USDP won a 2010 election in which the NLD refused to participate, protesting that it was held under unfair conditions.
After several changes in the election law, the NLD contested several dozen by-elections in 2012, winning virtually all.
The military called an election in 1990, which Suu Kyi's party won handsomely, only to see the results annulled and many of its leading members harassed and jailed.
Suu Kyi was put under house arrest prior to the election and spent 15 of the next 22 years mostly confined to her villa in Yangon.
She was under house arrest when she won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
