Myanmar awaits results of landmark election

More than 30 million people were eligible to vote in Myanmar’s freest election for a generation. It was the first time even for Suu Kyi, the epitome of the democracy movement who had defied the junta for decades. Her two sons, with her late husband, are British.

As she arrived in Natsingone village’s polling stations, reporters flooded into the stations.

Election monitors called it “a remarkable day” full of excitement and energy.

Thousands of supporters – many decked in the party’s red colour – gathered outside the Yangon headquarters of the National League for Democracy in the hope of a few indication of victory from Suu Kyi.

The opposition party is expected to announce unofficial results late Sunday or early Monday, based on tallies from its massive team of election observers throughout the country.

“I’m going to be above the president”, she said. “It will take a while for the results to be announced”.

Early results released by the country’s electoral commission showed the NLD on track to win the largest number of seats in Myanmar’s parliament. “But we are sure about those numbers”, he said.

The NLD, led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is expected to easily defeat the ruling Union Solitary Development Party, made up of members of Myanmar’s former military dictatorship. Activists estimated that up to 4 million people, mostly citizens working overseas, would not be able to vote.

Myanmar has seen huge changes since a quasi-civilian regime replaced outright military rule in 2011, after flawed polls that were boycotted by the NLD. Since opening up in 2012, Myanmar has experienced a slow and bumpy path towards true democracy, with many of its most powerful people, including current leaders, still well connected to the former military junta. But the military rulers annulled the results and placed Suu Kyi and many of her colleagues under arrest.

Jonathan Bogais, Adjunct Associate Professor School at the school of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney, said Suu Kyi will be in a hard position despite her party’s win. A shocked army refused to seat the winning lawmakers, with the excuse that a new constitution first had to be implemented – a task that ended up taking 18 years to accomplish. It is expected to be won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy party.

Although ousted by the president as leader of the USDP in favour of Htay Oo in August, Shwe Mann had been seen as a presidential contender. President Thein Sein said, “I’d like to say again that the government and the military will respect and accept the results”.

Ex-officers, however, have pledged to accept the results – unlike in 1990 when the military seized control after the NLD swept to victory. She cast her ballot at a polling station near the lakeside villa that had served as her prison when the country was under a military dictatorship.

Polls will close at 4pm (0930 GMT) with the attention then turning to the NLD headquarters in Yangon where the unofficial seat count will begin.

He added that he voted for NLD’s three candidates – Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for the Pyithu Hluttaw, U Kyaw Htwe for the Amyotha Hluttaw and Daw Thandar Aye for the regional hluttaw.

That’s a tall task, reports the BBC, because “a quarter of the parliamentary seats are reserved for the army”, and that means the NLD will have to win about two-thirds of the contested seats.

The opposition party’s leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi cast her ballot in Bahan township before visiting her constituency to observe voting in the afternoon. And about 1 million Rohingya Muslims, who are stateless and considered by the government to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, have been stripped of their right to vote.