YANGON, Myanmar -Aung San Suu Kyi, the top leader of Myanmar's main opposition party - the National League for Democracy (NLD), registered with the local election commission office in Yangon's southern district on Wednesday to run for a parliamentary seat in Kawmu township, according to local news reports.

The by-elections will be held on April 1.

The NLD has nominated 44 candidates including Suu Kyi to run in the parliamentary by-elections, with four more candidates remaining to be named, according to party sources.

Historic bid

Suu Kyi's bid is the latest sign of change in the country after the end of decades of military rule.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner's standing in the April 1 by-elections is seen as a major test of the government's reform credentials following a series of conciliatory gestures by the new nominally civilian government.

Suu Kyi submitted her registration in Kawhmu near Yangon, an area devastated by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, to the delight of crowds of supporters waiting outside.

"Aung San Suu Kyi was the first member of the NLD to register. She's going to run for the lower house," said Win Htein, a senior party official.

The 66-year-old's NLD party has already been given approval to return to the official political arena, against a backdrop of budding reforms including dialogue between the government and the opposition.

The NLD was stripped of its status as a legal political party in 2010 because it boycotted the national election, saying the rules were unfair.

Suu Kyi was released from years of house arrest shortly after the vote.

Since coming to power in March, the new military-backed government has made a series of reformist moves to reach out to political opponents and the West.

These included releasing hundreds of political prisoners and pursuing peace deals with armed ethnic minority rebels.

Xinhua-AFP