President Barack Obama is congratulating democracy crusader Aung San Suu Kyi for the success of her opposition party in Myanmar’s historic elections.
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But on July 20, 1989, she was placed under house detention, days after delivering a speech in which she openly criticized General Ne Win, who ruled Myanmar from 1962 to 1988.
It is the second time the NLD has won a national election by a landslide but, unlike in 1990, it is expected the military will allow them to take power. “Nowhere else in the world is there such a gap between the end of the election and the forming of the new administration, and certainly it’s something about which we should all be concerned”, Suu Kyi told reporters last week at her lakeside residence in Rangoon. Suu Kyi’s late husband was British and her children hold British passports.
On Thursday, the country’s powerful military rulers – who have dominated Myanmar’s politics for decades – congratulated Suu Kyi on her electoral win and pledged a peaceful transfer of power.
The military refused to accept the results and the next significant elections were held in 2010. The NLD is yet to disclose the person they have selected for the presidency. Thein Sein’s government met a few of the NLD’s demands for changes in the election laws, and the opposition party agreed to run in byelections in 2012, taking 43 of the 44 seats it contested.
Who ruled Myanmar so far? “It is a critical milestone in evaluating Burma’s democratic transition”. His party established a ruling council whose members were entirely drawn from the armed forces and held power for the next twenty-six years.
The United States imposed sanctions in response to the junta’s suppression of protests and detention of political prisoners in 1988. Democrats should take hope in other countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, where political rights are circumscribed and particular parties or the military maintain a tight grip on power.
A foreign visitor poses next to a graffiti depiction of Aung San Suu Kyi outside the headquarters of the National League for Democracy party in Yangon.
The NLD has won 247 seats in the Union Parliament’s lower house and 131 in the upper house for a total of 378, the Union Election Commission (UEC) said Friday, surpassing the “magic number” of 329 needed for an outright majority in the legislature, regardless of unreported results from the November 8 polls.
The NLD landslide, piling up seats at the rate of almost 9-1 against the party led by former generals that has led the country since 2011, means that the party will be able to select the next president and one of two vice presidents after the new parliament convenes in January.
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The results continued a sweeping victory for the party in Sunday’s elections, the freest in the Southeast Asian nation, formerly known as Burma, since the army took power in 1962. The commander in chief also retains autonomy from the president and Parliament under the Constitution, which was written by a previous military junta.
