Kawhmu Township

Kawmhu Township ကော့မှူး မြို့နယ်
Township of Yangon Region
Kawmhu Township
Coordinates:
Country	Myanmar
Region	Yangon
Township	Kawmhu
Population (April 2009)	123,276
Time zone	MST (UTC6:30)
Area code(s)	1 (mobile: 80, 99)

Kawmhu Township (Burmese: ကော့မှူး မြို့နယ် [kɔ̰m̥ú mjo̰nɛ̀]) is a township of Yangon Region, Myanmar. It is located in the southwestern section of the Region. Kawhmu was one of the townships in Yangon Region most affected by Cyclone Nargis.

Politics and history

Labor activist and political prisoner Su Su Nway is from Htan Manaing village in the township, where she became the first Burmese national to successfully sue local government officials under a 1999 law for forced labour.

In January 2012, after spending years in house arrest under the orders of Myanmar's ruling junta, Aung San Suu Kyi announced that she would be running for elected office to represent Kawhmu in parliament in elections slated for April 2012. The elections came after the Burmese government, led by President Thein Sein, began normalising relations with the West and showing other signs of democratic reform.

On 1 April 2012, Suu Kyi won her local election and now represents Kawhmu Township in the Burmese lower house of parliament. She leads the National League for Democracy (NLD), a party that had not participated in major elections for two decades because of various bans and boycotts.