Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD Party Wins in the Mayanmar Elections

Mayanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party has won the majority of the seats of recently held in Mayanmar with more than eighty percent of the seats.

Announcing the results on Friday, the fifth day of the vote-count, the Union Election Commission (UEC) said NLD had so far won 238 of the 330 contested seats in the 440-member Lower House while 110 of its nominees had been declared elected on 168 contested seats in the 224-member Upper House of parliament.

The NLD is expected to burst through that margin to secure a big working majority in a parliament where 25 percent of seats are reserved for the army.

Although Suu Kyi is ineligible to be president, she said last week that there was nothing in Myanmar’s constitution that said she couldn’t rule from an office “above the president”. Party Vice President Rahul Gandhi said that Suu Kyi shares a special bond with India that goes back a long way.

Minority parties won a handful of further seats.the incumbent military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party (USDP) has taken just 40 seats.

The daughter of independence hero General Aung San, Suu Kyi, 70, has headed non-violent opposition to the country’s military rulers for three decades – a role that has exacted a high personal cost.

The president’s spokesman said on Wednesday that the government would obey the results and work to transfer power peacefully, after offering congratulations to Aung San Suu Kyi. The military of Burma, who have governed Burma since 1962, did not let her political party, the National League for Democracy join the government.

Myanmar’s historic general election was held peacefully on November 8, with 6,038 candidates competing for more than 1,000 parliamentary seats. Her years of house arrest and courageous stand against oppression have made her an global symbol of peaceful struggle for freedom.

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. In addition to its unelected legislators, the military is also guaranteed control of key ministries such as defense, interior and border affairs.

The Nobel laureate’s party had hoped to capture at least two-thirds of the 440 seats in the lower house and 224 seats in the upper house in order to form a government.

Obama also called Thein Sein to congratulate the country on its success in conducting the elections and stressed the importance of respecting the outcome, it said.

Election officials have kept the public on their toes for days, drip-feeding results. Although Sein was a member of the military junta that had ruled Myanmar for decades, as president he led many reforms, including freeing prisoners, forging peace deals and relaxing censorship of the media. Amid a wave of democratic sentiment sparked by the Philippines’ People Power Revolution in 1986, she took center stage in Myanmar’s democracy movement, participating in the formation of the NLD.