Myanmar ruling party head says expects to win Sunday poll

She was referring to Buddhist monk Wirathu, whose notorious anti-Muslim tirades have garnered a significant following, including 100,000 Facebook followers. Suu Kyi was elected a member of parliament for a suburb of Yangon. The National League for Democracy, under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, is expected to do very well.

He helped found the United Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the junta’s mass social organisation which turned itself into a political party.

Photo: A voter wears green in support of the government USDP party.

In an election with 91 parties competing, including across restive ethnic areas, its victory is far from assured and the NLD has been burned before by army dirty tricks.

Win Min said that he believed the NLD would win 70 percent of the vote on the islands if the ballot was free, but Sunday’s poll was unlikely to reflect the wishes of most of the islands’ residents.

1886: Britain annexes Burma following the end of the Anglo-Burmese wars.

1947: Following World War II, Aung San – Suu Kyi’s father – negotiates Pangalong Agreement which guaranteed independence.

1962: General Ne Win takes control of the country in a coup d’état.

But the Nobel Peace Prize victor still commands huge loyalty among supporters of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party and she remains a magnetic force for those wanting to see Myanmar shake off its military past. But the military annulled the results and locked Suu Kyi up.

At the core of the issue is the 2008 constitution. The USDP prevailed in 2010 polls that the NLD boycotted because they were clearly rigged in the military’s favor.

But the government has urged critics to focus on the upside – that Myanmar is having an election at all. The NLD won by a landslide, but a shocked army refused to recognize the results.

The southeast Asian nation was ruled for five decades by a brutal junta that smothered opponents with violence, jail and political sleight of hand.

But in 2011 the junta suddenly handed power to a semi-civilian government led by former generals.

The USDP government, which released hundreds of political prisoners and restored many freedoms, was rewarded with the lifting of most Western sanctions.

The polls will close in the late afternoon with official results expected to start trickling out by early Monday. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Wednesday said that “systemic problems” with the structure of Myanmar’s politics “will prevent this from being a completely free and fair election”.

Khine Thay, 35, a former secondary school teacher who set up a newspaper stand in Yangon four years ago, said she’s voting for Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD.

She plans to get up at 4am on Sunday to beat the queues at the polling station.

“What she’s saying”, says Winn, “is that I know the country would like for me to be president”. Indelible ink pots have been sent out to 46,000 polling stations.

The 70-year-old Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency by a constitutional clause believed to have been inserted by the army to hamper her political rise.

She has also faced global censure for failing to speak up for the country’s embattled Muslim population – especially the ethnic Rohingya in restive Rakhine State.

Suu Kyi’s supporters, many of whom were voting for the first time on Sunday, see an NLD win as a major stride towards the fulfilment of her destiny to lead the country.

In Burma’s landmark nationwide elections on November 8, a cacophony of ethnic parties are contesting the vote, each vowing to give voice in parliament to their particular people.

For an outright majority over the combined parliament, the NLD need to win at least 330 – or 67 percent – of the contested seats.

The USDP needs only around a third to join up the military bloc to select its presidential nominee.

In her campaign rallies, Suu Kyi also has said her party expects to win if the elections are fair.

In January, there will be a single vote for one of three candidates, with the runners-up becoming vice presidents. Prior to her first stint of house arrest in July 1989, Suu Kyi spent months on a tiring and often personally risky campaign trail.

Who that might be is still the topic of intense speculation. On Sunday Myanmar will hold what is being viewed as the country’s best chance for a free and credible election in a quarter of a century.