Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party secures 536 parliamentary seats
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), Myanmar’s opposition party, has so far secured 536 parliamentary seats in Myanmar general polls.
Results so far gave Suu Kyi’s party 179 of 216 seats declared out of the 330 seats not allocated to the military in the lower house.
The NLD said its tally of results posted at polling stations showed it was on track to take more than two-thirds of seats that were contested in Parliament, enough to form Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since the early 1960s.
The votes are still being counted, but opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the likely victor in Myanmar’s elections held Sunday, wasted no time Wednesday getting down to business, setting a meeting with the former and current military men now in charge to talk about a smooth transfer of power.
The UEC on Wednesday announced that Suu Kyi had won the general election and was re-elected as a representative to the House of Representatives of the next parliament.
Yesterday morning, Mr Obama called U Thein Sein to congratulate him on the holding of a successful and “free and fair” election, according to U Ye Htut, spokesperson for the Myanmar president.
On Wednesday, the USA president also called Suu Kyi to thank her for “tireless efforts and sacrifice over so many years” to promote peace and democracy. Of those, Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won 256 and the ruling party won 21. Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi is, in the words of Vaclav Havel, one of the outstanding examples of the power of the powerless.
“Well, I’ll make all the decisions, it’s as simple as all that”, she said, deeming the constitutional requirements a technicality “that won’t stop me from making all the decisions as the leader of the winning party”. Few doubt that the military inserted the clause to rule her out.
The party says it has guided the country through the major economic and social reforms that led to Sunday’s election, which is believed to have seen a massive 80 percent voter turnout. “He [the president] will have to understand this perfectly well that he will have no authority; that he will act in accordance with the positions of the party”. Suu Kyi, who retained her own seat in Kawmhu, Yangon, isn’t eligible because of a law that bars people who are married to or closely related to foreigners.
But the incoming results confirmed a landslide win for the opposition and a resounding rejection of military rule in Myanmar.
China, Myanmar’s powerful northern neighbor and a traditional close ally of its military, is praising the conduct of the election and pledging to maintain friendly relations, even while refraining to comment on the outcome. The ruling Communist Party hosted Aung San Suu Kyi in June, during which she met with China’s president and party leader, Xi Jinping, in a sign of Beijing’s willingness to adapt to the changing political landscape. After January 31, all 664 legislators will cast ballots and the top vote-getter will become president, while the other two will be vice-presidents.
The military and the largest parties in the parliament will nominate candidates for president in February of next year.