Mr Ko Ko Gyi is a leading political activist of his generation. Like many students who rose against Myanmar's then junta in 1988, he was jailed for long periods in the succeeding two decades but finally walked out of prison in 2012, just in time to help democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi enter Parliament through a historic by-election.

When the general election came around in 2015, he was passed over as a candidate by Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party. In fact, most of the so-called "88 Generation" of activists were left out of her slate, fuelling anticipation that the pro-democracy forces that united in 2015 to defeat a military-backed ruling party would splinter.