US President Barack Obama has congratulated Myanmar’s longtime pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on success in “historic” elections, the White House said Thursday.
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Of the 536 seats, 179 are in the House of Representatives (Lower House), 77 in the House of Nationalities (Upper House) and 280 in the Region or State Parliament, according to the Union Election Commission (UEC), reported Xinhua news agency.
Results so far gave Suu Kyi’s party 217 out of the 330 seats not allocated to the military in the lower house.
Despite Sein’s stated commitment to accept the election results, history suggests that Myanmar’s military, which has ruled in a few form or another since the 1960s, may not allow Suu Kyi and the NLD to take control of the country’s legislative and executive branches.
“The public has expressed their opinion”, Ms Suu Kyi said in separate letters sent to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Thein Sein and parliament Speaker Shwe Mann.
Mr Obama also called President Thein Sein to congratulate Burma on its success in conducting the election and the importance of respecting the outcome.
Obama called the Nobel Peace Prize victor who spent more than a decade under house arrest and praised her “tireless efforts and sacrifice over so many years to promote a more inclusive, peaceful and democratic Burma”.
National League co-founder Tin Oo said Tuesday that the party expects to win about 80 percent of the votes – putting it on pace with the party’s 1990 landslide that the military annulled.
Relations between Suu Kyi and armed forces chief Min Aung Hlaing are said to be strained. Despite the ban she has said she would rule “above the president” as the head of the party.
Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, a former general and top military commander, offered congratulations to the NLD in an earlier statement.
She described that plan further in an interview Tuesday with Singapore’s Channel News Asia television.
It was a frequent spot on her countrywide campaign trail in recent weeks and she received a rapturous welcome on returning to the constituency after casting her ballot in central Yangon on Sunday. She said Suu Kyi’s comments on the presidency may sound awkward to Westerners, but they were bearing out what she made clear on the campaign trail – that when people vote for the NLD, they are getting her leadership. “He [the president] will have to understand this perfectly well that he will have no authority; that he will act in accordance with the positions of the party”. In a state of emergency, a special military-led body can even assume state powers.
“Spoke to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi & congratulated her. India will be delighted to welcome her”, Modi tweeted, soon after arriving here on a three-day visit.
Analysts say hard months lie ahead, with the army still in charge of key levers of power, protected by a constitution gifting it 25 percent of all parliamentary seats as well as key security posts.
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The military and the largest parties in the parliament will nominate candidates for president in February of next year.
