Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament and was also close to a majority in the upper house, with 80 percent of seats contested in Sunday’s elections already declared.
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According to the latest election results, Aung San Suu Kyi has won Myanmar’s landmark election and claimed a staggering majority in parliament, ending half a century of dominance by the military and providing the symbol of a decades-old democracy movement with a mandate to rule.
NLD captured 21 lower house seats on Friday, the election commission said, taking its total to 348 seats with 82.9 percent of the vote now confirmed.
Blogger Nay Phone Latt spent years in prison under Myanmar’s former junta, but preparing to enter parliament as a newly minted MP for Aung San Suu Kyi’s democracy party, he refuses to let the darkness of the past boring optimism for the country’s future.
On Wednesday, the incumbent Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) conceded defeat.
When the new legislature convenes in February, it must first choose a president, who will be elected through a parliamentary vote.
Yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama called Suu Kyi to personally congratulate her on her campaign and the NLD’s success, noting that the election and the formation of a new government could be “an important step forward” in the country’s democratic transition.
Aung San Suu Kyi is not eligible for the presidency under the 2008 constitution because her sons are foreign nationals. Burned into public memory is the bitter disappointment of the 1990 elections, which were won overwhelmingly by the NLD only to be ignored by the military, who clung to power for another two decades.
The army remains the country’s most powerful institution and will have to make accommodations with Ms Suu Kyi’s party as it moves to form a government to ensure stability in the country of 52 million people.
Obama and Ban also praised Thein Sein for successfully staging the historic poll, with the United Nations chief acknowledging his “courage and vision” to organise an election in which the ruling camp was trounced.
Suu Kyi, 70, has not spoken to the party faithful since Monday.
The office of army commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said the military will hold talks with Suu Kyi after the election results are complete. She election commission has slowly been releasing figures on Friday. But the outcome appears to stem from the simple fact that veneration for Ms Suu Kyi was underestimated and the ruling party’s strength overestimated.
The Shan National League for Democracy (SNLD) took the most at 40, followed by the Arakan National Party (ANP), Taaung National Party and Pa-O National Organisation (PNO).
The country faces a period of uncertainty as the NLD and other emerging parties negotiate sharing power with the armed forces, which get one-quarter of parliament’s seats under the military-drafted constitution.
– 49: The number of years Myanmar was ruled by a military junta, until the army ceded power in 2011 to a quasi-civilian government led by retired generals.
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In a state of emergency, a special military-led body can even assume state powers.
