Pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi hit the campaign trail in Myanmar in preparation for by-elections in April.

Thousands of supporters cheered her during a speech in Pathein, also called Bassein, a city of around 300,000 in southwestern Myanmar.

It's an important inland port and rail head on the Irrawaddy River Delta, around 120 miles west of Yangon.

More than 50,000 people, old and young, cheered the leader of the National League for Democracy as her motorcade moved along city streets to the Koe Thein Football Stadium, a report by the independent Irrawaddy news Web site said.

The NLD is hoping to capture as many as 40 of the 48 vacant seats in the lower house of Parliament.

At the stadium, Suu Kyi, 66, vowed to work for the people who have waited for democracy for more than 20 years.

The reference to 20 years was when Suu Kyi and her NLD party won a national election but was refused power by the ruling military government. She was imprisoned several times for public statements condemning the lack of democracy.

After a national election in November 2010, the new government of ex-junta members took office in January last year, although many Western countries called the process and result fraudulent.

A major issue for Western countries was the exclusion of Suu Kyi from running in the election because she was under house arrest. Also, because of her criminal record, according to laws enacted by the junta, she was ineligible to run for Parliament.

But this week she said her party's decision to enter the by-election was "to make changes in the constitution, to have the rule of law and to work for internal peace," the Irrawaddy report said.

The campaigning by Suu Kyi and the NLD party marks another apparent move toward democratic reforms by the nominally civilian government of former military leaders.

Suu Kyi in the past has expressed caution over pronouncements by the ex-junta leaders that they were reforming the political landscape in Myanmar, formerly called Burma.

In a rare face-to-face interview with a foreign news service, she told the BBC in October that Myanmar may be inching toward democracy but Western countries should remain vigilant that nascent reforms are genuine.

"There are signs that President Thein Sein, a former senior military ruler, wants reform but it's early days," she said. "I believe that the president wants to institute reforms but how far these reforms will go and how effective these will be, that still needs to be seen."

Suu Kyi's public speech in Pathein was the first time local people had seen the opposition icon for 23 years -- her last political campaign trip to the area was in 1989, said the Irrawaddy report.

Last week Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special envoy on the human rights situation in Myanmar, said the government runs a risk of backtracking on progress achieved in the country since general elections in 2010.

"At this a crucial moment in the country's history, further and sustained action should be taken to bring about further change," he said during his six-day visit to the country that included a meeting with Suu Kyi.

The Irrawaddy all also announced its editor, Aung Zaw, is in Myanmar this week for the first time in more than 20 years and since founding the Irrawaddy in Thailand in 1993.

He's traveling on a five-day journalist visa to investigate changes to the publishing climate since the civilian government was elected.

Zaw has contributed articles to international publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom and Foreign Policy, the Irrawaddy said.

"I have always wanted to return to Burma as a journalist," Zaw said. "I expect to be very busy meeting with fellow journalists and possibly with government officials."