Burma has promised to “seriously consider” allowing election observers for April 1 by-elections in which Aung San Suu Kyi is standing, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations said today.

It said Burma President Thein Sein made the pledge to visiting ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan during talks in the capital Naypyidaw.

“We will seriously consider having observers from ASEAN … during the April elections,” Thein Sein was quoted as saying.

The polls, which will see Suu Kyi run for a seat in parliament for the first time, are viewed as a key test of the authorities’ commitment to budding reforms.

A 2010 election which swept the army’s political allies to power was marred by widespread complaints of cheating and intimidation.

The opposition cannot threaten the ruling party’s majority even if it takes all 48 available seats in the by-elections, but a Suu Kyi win would lend legitimacy to the fledgling parliament.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party won a landslide victory in an election in 1990, but the then-ruling junta never allowed the party to take power.

Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time. She was released from her latest stint in detention a few days after the 2010 vote.

The upcoming polls are being held to fill places vacated by those who have since become government and deputy ministers.