Campaign begins for Myanmar election set to decide scope of democratic change

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at Parliament buildings on the Stormont estate in Belfast, in this October 24, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton/Files

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will take her election battle straight to one of the president's closest allies when campaigning gets under way this week for the first free general election since the end of military rule.

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi will meet her supporters on Thursday in the region where powerful Minister of the President's Office Soe Thein, the architect of President Thein Sein's economic reforms, is running for a seat in the Nov. 8 election.