But people who have come to know her in the last four years say they are mystified as to why she has remained so muted, even in her freedom. Some see her positions, and her silences, as political expedience.

“She should speak out about the Rohingya to prevent us Burmese from being racist,” said Ko Tar, an environmental and education advocate. “It is a political calculation that she does not.”

In many respects, he said, she tends to side with the elite.

“On the copper mine she made a strategic calculation not to anger the company,” he said. “She could not feel the suffering of the people.”

When environmental activists campaigned against a Chinese-built dam, she made anodyne statements about the Irrawaddy River being an essential waterway but declined to get involved, he said, and she has refused to be drawn into the effort to decentralize the rigid education system. “She is silent on education; there is no discussion in the Parliament on education,” he said.

Women’s groups concerned about a recent bill to ban interfaith marriages asked for her help, said Daw Zin Mar Aung, a member of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party. “We were threatened by the ultranationalists and the monks over our stand against the law,” she said. “She told us to inform the police, but the police are useless.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi depends for much of her advice on a small kitchen cabinet dominated by two women she has known through long friendships, a Western diplomat said. One of them is Daw Ohmar Moe Myint, whose husband, a powerful businessman, was on the United States sanctions list until 2012. The other is her chief of staff, Dr. Tin Mary Aung, a medical doctor and a Rakhine, the ethnic group fighting the Rohingya in western Myanmar. Some diplomats say Dr. Tin Mary Aung may influence Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s decision to keep a low profile on the Rohingyas.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has granted few interviews with foreign media recently, and people who work with her said it would not be possible to interview her for this article. But when she has responded to criticism, she has not backed down from controversial positions.