The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party has taken 115 seats, accounting for 10 percent of the total, including 29 in the House of Representatives, 12 in the House of Nationalities, and 72 in the Region or State Parliament, as well as two ethnic representatives to the Region or State Parliament.
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“If we saw any problems or cheating, we would tell the media”, she said of the group’s unofficial monitoring mission, made up of mostly female first-time voters.
His message to Aung San Suu Kyi came the day following official confirmation on Friday that the party had secured the parliamentary majority required to select the country’s next president and form government in 2016.
A number of laws overseeing business, the economy, the banking sector and the federal budget are scheduled for debate.
Once the session has concluded, the new NLD-dominated parliament will gather to choose a new speaker, two vice-presidents and a president.
The former junta leader’s comments bring a few relief to those who are concerned about how Suu Kyi will be able to govern in the face of a still politically and economically powerful military.
President Thein Sein sought to allay such fears on Sunday during his first speech since the election when he insisted that his semi-civilian government would hand over power, while claiming credit for the country’s transition.
There are high expectations for it to pursue an economic overhaul started by Thein Sein and his technocrats, which has delivered record foreign investment, improvements in power, infrastructure and telecoms and booms for tourism, construction and banking. “I would like to stress that this work will be undertaken calmly, peacefully, and smoothly”, he said.
Instead, Suu Kyi’s party has found itself alone with solving ethnic grievances, potentially dimming hopes of resolving an issue that has long destabilised the country and led to six decades of conflict.
A formidable win in the November 8 polls for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) bulldozed the current army-backed ruling party and is set to dramatically reshape the country’s political landscape.
Suu Kyi is Myanmar’s most popular politician and, if the elections are credible, the NLD is widely expected to win the largest number of seats in parliament.
While Ms Suu Kyi has been criticised for relative passivity regarding the systematic persecution of Rohingya Muslims in the country, several days before the election she did promise to protect minorities isolated in “ethnic ghettoes”, which was widely interpreted as addressing Rohingya’s plight.
“She warned NLD MPs not to indulge in fantasies of becoming ministers or deputy ministers”, he said. Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest shortly after the 2010 elections, won a seat in Parliament, along with many other NLD candidates, in the by-elections that took place in 2012.
Meanwhile, the Union Election Commission said Sunday the NLD has won an additional three parliamentary seats for a total of 390 out of the 488 seats whose outcome has been determined.
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Now, these groups will be looking to cash in their chips for sticking with her. But the army has long justified its iron rule on the basis of maintaining national unity, which in practice means maintaining the dominance of the ethnic Burman majority.
