Original Article on Los Angeles Times

If Aung San Suu Kyi is elected to Burma's parliament on Sunday, the world will inevitably ask: Has Asia's Nelson Mandela finally met her President F.W. de Klerk? Or, if you prefer a European comparison, has Asia's Vaclav Havel met her Mikhail Gorbachev? Cue episode three in the world's prisoner-to-president sagas?I do believe that day will come, but let us have no illusions: There are still major obstacles ahead. Wisdom and strength, both inside and outside Burma, will be needed to surmount them.Whatever happens, Suu Kyi has long since earned the Havel and Mandela comparisons. Like Mandela, she has endured decades of imprisonment, emerging with an extraordinary lack of rancor. Like Havel, she has not only been her country's leading dissiden...(read more)