Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD Will take power in Myanmar

After a drip-feed of results from the Union Election Commission, the NLD on Friday sailed through the two-thirds majority it needs to rule, claiming 348 parliamentary seats with a number of results yet to be declared. This means that the party has surpassed the 329-seat threshold needed to gain a 51 percent majority in parliament – ensuring the party will be unimpeded in choosing Myanmar’s next president in a parliamentary committee vote scheduled for February 2016.

Suu Kyi’s victory had been widely expected, but few anticipated a landslide of such dramatic proportions.

The office of army commander Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said the military will hold talks with Ms Suu Kyi after the election results are complete.

The NLD had won 238 seats in the 440-seat lower house as of Friday morning, according to Myanmar Times.

More than half a century later, the dominant military and its political proxies have admitted defeat, issuing strikingly magnanimous congratulations to the NLD for its election performance.

But the comfortable majority gives Suu Kyi’s party control of the lower and upper houses, allowing it to elect the president and form the government.

The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party had 28 seats.

The US President Barack Obama has called his Myanmarese counterpart Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to congratulate them on the successful elections in the country.

The military in Burma – which is also known as Myanmar – took power in a 1962 coup and brutally suppressed several pro-democracy uprisings during its rule. The military automatically receives 25 per cent of the seats in each house of parliament.

While the NLD is the country’s most popular party and Suu Kyi its most popular politician, the constitution (written by the junta) institutionalizes the military’s control of government and ensures that no other party can check its prerogatives.

In Yangon there were no immediate signs of celebration after Ms Suu Kyi urged restraint from supporters, aware of the threat of a backlash in a country where the army’s writ remains large.

Tu Ja said Suu Kyi should be careful to ensure the voices of ethnic minorities are heard in the new government – and not just the views of Myanmar’s ethnic Bamar majority.

Nyan Win said the NLD would use the meeting to get a better sense of “how to build a new government”, adding that the party also plans to tap “intellectuals” to lead its ministries and will begin to hammer out “laws to develop the country” after forming its administration.

The transfer of power should take place after the new parliament meets early next year and votes on a new president, along with two vice presidents.

A Rohingya Muslim woman who has a citizen card show her inked finger after voting at a polling station in a refugee camp outside Sittwe.Suu Kyi defied calls by ethnic parties not to run candidates in minority-dominated seats. And in a state of emergency, a military-led body can assume sweeping powers.