Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party secure historic majority in Myanmar

The party of democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi has won a majority in Myanmar’s parliament, the election commission said on Friday, giving it enough seats to elect its chosen candidate to the presidency when the new legislature convenes next year. After her victory-and the implicit rebuke it delivered to Buddhist nationalists, who tried to undermine Miss Suu Kyi’s campaign by accusing her of coddling Muslims-many will rightly expect more. One-quarter of the seats are reserved for unelected military generals.

The magic number 329 is derived from the fact that the opposition would need to win more than a two-thirds majority of the 491 contested seats in both houses (168 in the upper house and 323 in the lower house, with seven canceled in the lower house due to fighting among insurgent groups).

In each house under the constitution, the military automatically receives 25 percent of the seats. He said it would be up to Myanmar’s new parliament and leaders to decide about constitutional reform.

But Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who spent decades under military-imposed house arrest, has insisted she would lead the country anyway if her party won. Consequently, Suu Kyi, whose sons are British, is disqualified from this position.

Preparing his latest paintings at a new studio in Yangon, he is stirred by the promise of the elections.

The ruling Communist Party invited her for a China visit in June, where she met President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, the traditional greeting place for foreign leaders.

Ms Suu Kyi’s message came amid lingering fears the military might overturn the vote, as it did when the NLD won a previous landslide victory in 1990.

Mr Obama also called President Thein Sein to congratulate Burma on its success in conducting the election and the importance of respecting the outcome. Suu Kyi issued an invitation Wednesday for a meeting with the commander, along with President Thein Sein and House Speaker Shwe Mann. “I’m so happy… Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will do more for us than the current government”, said 66-year-old street vendor Moe Thursday.

Aung San Suu Kyi has officially been declared the victor of Myanmar’s election, making history in the once hermit nation ruled for half a century by brutal dictators.

Both men have congratulated the NLD on its election performance and have vowed to abide by the result as well as help a peaceful transition of power. Even if a change in power does occur, the NLD will sooner or later become unable to keep going without the cooperation of the military and the USDP.

Ms Suu Kyi has said she plans to run the government above a president, despite being barred from the post under an army-written constitution.

Under Myanmar’s complex political system, the NLD will also have to wait until March next year for the transfer of power.