Readout of the President’s Call with Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma

After decades of fighting, it looks like Aung San Suu Kyi National League of Democracy party is going to take a landslide victory in the national election.

The election results are a clear rejection of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and decades-long military rule.

Suu Kyi has declared, however, that she will become the country’s de facto leader, acting “above the president” if her party forms the next government, and that the new president will be a figurehead.

The army has also congratulated the NLD on its win in a statement posted to the Facebook page of the military’s media portal, Myawady.

To form Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since the early 1960s, the NLD needs to win more than two-thirds of seats that were contested.

By yesterday afternoon the NLD was just 38 seats short of hitting the magical figure of 329 to claim a majority across both houses of parliament.

Panelists said one way the US can influence Myanmar’s course in the days ahead is by offering investments in exchange for the new curbs on the military’s power and its ability to interfere in politics.

If the full results confirm the trend, Ms Suu Kyi’s triumph will sweep out an old guard of former generals that has run Myanmar.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of an independence leader, expressed concern last week about irregularities in advance voting, fraud and intimidation.

Myanmar voters went to the polls on Sunday in a hard election that was carefully managed by the military, but which seems to have resulted in a decisive victory for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.

“The Lady”, as she is known, has indicated she will make the decisions even if someone else has to be president.

Suu Kyi, 70, is barred by Myanmar’s constitution from becoming president because she’s married to a foreigner and has children with foreign passports.

The global community has welcomed the election, with U.S. president Barack Obama calling both Ms Suu Kyi and the president Thein Sein to offer his congratulations.

Suu Kyi’s party said Wednesday it received a message from Information Minister Ye Htut on behalf of President Thein Sein congratulating it for leading the race for parliamentary seats. But Ms Suu Kyi’s supporters remain anxious at how the army will respond to a mauling at the polls, with memories still keen of the 1990 election – won by the NLD but then swatted away by the army.

Under a constitution it wrote, 25 percent of all parliamentary seats are reserved for military appointees.

But tackling the nation’s considerable challenges and furthering democracy will require Suu Kyi and her party to work pragmatically within existing confines.

But human rights groups have warned of a rise in politically motivated arrests as well as discrimination directed against the Muslim minority, notably the stateless Rohingya population.