No bidders for $142M home of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi

YANGON, Myanmar -- A second attempt to auction the family home of Myanmar's imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi failed on Thursday after no bidders showed up, likely deterred by the court-ordered asking price of $142 million.

Suu Kyi spent 15 years in the home under house arrest, hosting visiting dignitaries including U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and many see it as a historical landmark in her nonviolent struggle against military rule, for which she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The minimum sale price of 300 billion kyats was a reduction from the initial attempt in March to get 315 billion kyats, about $150 million at official rates.

With black-market exchange rates, which better reflect the real value of the kyat — which has been plummeting — the March asking price was about $90 million and the current price was closer to $46 million — still a lot to pay in a country in the middle of a civil war where nearly half the people are living below the national poverty line of 76 U.S. cents per day, according to the United Nations.

Proceeds from the sale of the 1.9-acre (0.78-hectare) lakeside property in Yangon were to be split between Suu Kyi and her estranged older brother. Suu Kyi’s lawyers had challenged the auction order.

The attempted auction was held in front of the closed gates of the property, which has served as an unofficial party headquarters and a political shrine for the country’s pro-democracy movement.

It lasted less than one minute before a district court official announced there had been no bidders and she ended the proceedings.

According to legal procedures, the court will continue to handle the auction process, but the details are not yet known.

The two-story colonial-style building in Yangon, the country's largest city, was given decades ago by the government to Suu Kyi’s mother, Khin Kyi, after her husband, independence hero Gen. Aung San, was assassinated in July 1947.

Suu Kyi, 79, remained there after her 2010 release from house arrest until moving in 2012 to the capital, Naypyitaw, to serve in parliament. She became the nation’s leader after a 2015 general election.

Her elected government was ousted in an army takeover in February 2021, and Suu Kyi is now serving a combined 27-year sentence after being convicted of a string of criminal charges.

Her supporters and independent analysts say the charges were concocted to discredit her and legitimize the military’s seizure of power.

The court-ordered auction followed a bitter decades-long legal dispute between Suu Kyi and her brother, Aung San Oo, who has sought an equal division of the property.

Suu Kyi’s lawyers have not been allowed to meet with her since they last saw her in person in December 2022.