However, the main opposition party, Fine Gael, has been unable to parlay this into mass support, claiming just an estimated 31 per cent of the vote.
He treated the television interview as an opportunity to have a lash-out at the opposition party.
According to Maehara, he was not aware of the donations until it was raised last Friday by the opposition party.
As Burma's largest opposition party, the NLD won a landslide victory in the 1990 election but the military regime never acknowledged the result.
AFP, Yangon. Soon after the opposition party leader Aung San Sun Kyi called on again to release all political prisoners, the Myanmar military government admitted that 14 political prisoners had already been released.
The main southern opposition party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), withdrew its presidential candidate and most of its parliamentary ones in the north.
