YANGON: The detained deputy leader of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party in military-ruled Myanmar should be released next

week and is set to resume political activities, a party spokesman said today.

Tin Oo, 83, vice chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been detained without trial since he was arrested with Suu Kyi after an attack on their motorcade during a political tour in 2003.

“We are waiting and watching. They (the government) have to release him as the continued arrest order finishes next week,” NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP. “He will definitely come back to the office,” he said, adding that the detention should end on February 13. Tin Oo, a retired general, was transferred from prison to house arrest in Yangon in February 2004 under an anti-subversion law.

He has been allowed to leave his home for medical check-ups, and Nyan Win said the detainee’s health was “fine” after having an eye operation at a private clinic a few days ago.

The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 but the junta never allowed them to take office. The party leader and democracy icon Suu Kyi, 64, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.

Analysts have said she faces an urgent challenge to shake up the party leadership committee, as the majority are in their 80s and 90s and most are said to be in bad health.

Suu Kyi’s own house arrest

was extended for 18 months

in August when she was convicted over an incident in which

an American man swam to

her house.

The sentence sparked international outrage as it is expected to keep her off the scene for elections promised by the junta some time this year, although

a date has not yet been

announced.

The opposition has been deeply suspicious of the

planned polls, which it sees as a plot to legitimise the junta’s five decade iron-fisted rule.