NC President Koirala congratulates Aung San Suu Kyi

“Both the army chief Min Aung Hlaing and President Thein Sein, whose reforms have opened the country to the world, have vowed to respect the election result and agreed to hold talks with Nobel laureate Suu Kyi”, reads the AFP report. “Above all, I feel it is in the best interest of Myanmar”.

The NLD wants to change the constitution, which was drafted by the military in 2008 with the aim of maintaining power.

The dictators and army generals of Myanmar have ceded political power one drop at a time over the past decade, a process they carefully managed.

But the victory is a sweet second chance for the party, which also won a landslide victory in the first election it contested, in 1990, only to see the results annulled by the military, and many of its leading members harassed and jailed. It was in keeping with South and Southeast Asian political traditions that women from powerful families often follow in the political footsteps of ruling husbands and fathers. The military could still get cold feet and back away from the loss of its power and privilege, even if much of it is safeguarded.

For a party whose new parliamentarians will include medical doctors, former political prisoners and several poets, the energy of the opposition movement will have to compensate for the lack of economic and political expertise. “The government and the military would have had Plan A, B and C, but now Plan Z has just happened”. The combined houses then vote on the three candidates, who do not have to be elected members of parliament.

The military automatically receives 25 percent of the seats in each house under the constitution.

“The people of Myanmar have been dutiful and it is time for the NLD to try to fulfil the wishes of the people”.

All those restrictions make it hard for the government to tackle the most pressing issue facing the country since independence from Britain in 1948: relations among the central government, the majority Burmans and the country’s many ethnic minorities and their desire to establish a federal union instead of the present, centralized system. A much-touted “Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement” between eight such groups and the government on October 15 this year, fell short of being an important step towards peace.

She could also push for the amendment of the constitution, allowing her to eventually become the president.

Nor does the military, which retains considerable power, necessarily need a concession from Suu Kyi.

Myanmar’s economy lacks the institutions, governing experience and legacy of stability to shrug off a turbulent transfer of power, especially if the military feels goaded into a few form of retrenchment. The country can ill afford a protracted fight that prevents the new government or its successors from building out Myanmar’s nascent regulatory framework, banking sector and infrastructure.

Now the real work begins, and a new government led by NLD must deliver on its promises – or disappoint the people who voted for change on November 8. On November 10, China warned the next government against embracing the West too closely. Notably, Suu Kyi disappointed activists in 2014 when a commission she chaired supported the resumption of a Chinese-backed copper mine on the grounds that Myanmar can not afford to discourage foreign investment or antagonize Beijing. The Myanmar army still stands by its call for “disciplined democracy”.