Thizarli Htut Htut, 18, poses with her inked finger outside the residence of Myanmar opposition leader and head of the National League for Democracy (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi after she casted her vote at a polling station in Yangon on November 8, 2015.
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The current parliament will remain in place until January, when the new government will take their seats and choose a president, two vice-presidents and a speaker.
The military has also said that it would abide by the election result, and respect the voice of the people.
There is however, somewhat of a view that this might not happen, with the norm, really not being the norm in a state that has generations knowing nothing other than military rule. In the negotiations that precede government formation slated for February, she has a stronger hand than many might have expected, yet the NLD’s latitude to implement reforms is still sharply bounded in a political system that is a partial democracy at best. If the NLD asserts control over regional governments in minority areas, “it will be just like the situation under the USDP government”, he said.
Clymer, who taught a course at Yangon University in Myanmar in 2013, resolved to write his new book while Aung San Suu Kyi was still on house arrest.
Before the election campaign began in early September, Tatmadaw Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said the military would only step back from politics once peace prevailed, in the wake of five decades of civil war.
The Democratic Voice of Burma quoted Myat Nyana Soe, an NLD lawmaker who was re-elected, as saying he doubted the current USDP-dominated chamber would undertake any major decisions during its final session, adding that parliament is still under Shwe Mann, who has good relations with Aung San Suu Kyi.
“I can see that the goal people wanted is still far ahead and [the election] is only the first step”, the NLD leader said.
“After parliament step by step carries out its work, transfer to the resulting new government will occur within the designated timeframe”.
And yet the scale of the NLD’s victory has taken many observers by surprise.
The NLD will face a variety of challenges, not least of which is the huge tide of pent-up expectations evidenced by the vote.
Ms Suu Kyi brought an enormous moral standing into this election, buttressed by the landslide results. A constitutional provision in the form of Article 59F bars a person whose family members owe allegiance to a foreign government from occupying the post of president.
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Few expect the army to put up that kind of roadblock again. To support her monumental cause, New Delhi must not only promote the Indian Army’s security coordination with Myanmar’s military, but, more importantly, assist in moulding a successful multi-ethnic federal polity by training the next generation of non-violent activists to follow Ms Suu Kyi, who is now a septuagenarian. Over the past four years, Suu Kyi has collaborated closely with the military-backed government and functioned as its roving ambassador, encouraging foreign investment, an end to sanctions and closer diplomatic ties with the United States and its allies.
