The ruling Union Solidarity Development Party, which is backed by the military, has won just 5% of the votes counted. The NLD is also far ahead in the upper chamber of parliament, winning 95 of the 116 seats announced so far.
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HONG KONG – Army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing respects the outcome of Myanmar’s election and is willing to work with a new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), a senior government official said.
But Suu Kyi’s supporters remain anxious about how the army and its allies will respond to a mauling, with memories still keen of the 1990 election – won by the NLD but then swatted away by the junta.
She sent three separate letters to the head of the military, the president and the speaker of parliament, requesting dialogue within a week about transferring power.
Western capitals are banking that the policy of engagement by the USA and Europe with U Thein Sein’s government over the past four years, accompanied by the lifting of most sanctions, will pay off in terms of a peaceful transition to a new NLD-led government which will share power with the military.
But with Suu Kyi barred from becoming president under the current constitution and a plethora of problems with the treatment of Myanmar’s ethnic and religious groups, Washington may be cautious to move quickly.
If the NLD secures a two-thirds majority of the parliamentary seats at stake – a likely scenario now – it would gain control over the executive posts under Myanmar’s complicated parliamentary-presidency system. Suu Kyi has two British sons from her now deceased British husband.
The NLD took 56 of the 61 lower house seats announced on Wednesday as it continued to sweep towards a landslide. Suu Kyi, who retained her own seat in Kawmhu, Yangon, isn’t eligible because of a law that bars people who are married to or closely related to foreigners.
This paragraph in Reuters’s report of the incoming election results sums up a few of the quirks (to put it mildly) of Myanmar’s historic election.
Cameron said the sight of thousands lined up to vote during Sunday’s election, a few for the first time in their lives, was “a moving moment demonstrating the remarkable progress Burma has made in recent years”.
“We will work peacefully in the transfer” of responsibilities to the winning party, he said in a letter posted on Facebook, adding talks with Suu Kyi could be held after the official result is annnounced.
Under a constitution it wrote, 25 percent of all parliamentary seats are reserved for military appointees.
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The military and the largest parties in the parliament will nominate candidates for president in February of next year. After January 31, all 664 legislators will cast ballots and the top vote-getter will become president, while the other two will be vice presidents.
