With asking price of $142 million, no bidders for home of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — 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