Myanmar’s ruling party concedes defeat in parliamentary polls

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has indicated that her National League for Democracy (NLD) has likely won Sunday’s national elections by a landslide, with current projections giving the pro-democracy party around 70% of votes cast.

However, worldwide election observers – in Myanmar for the first time – said that the voting process in the fledgling democracy was generally relatively smooth, despite a few isolated anomalies, the BBC reported.

“As a political party, it is our responsibility to serve the people whether we win the elections or not”.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate leader of the NLD – who spent 15 years under house arrest for opposing the former junta – urged supporters at party headquarters Monday not to “provoke” candidates who have lost. Suu Kyi has said she would be the power behind the new president regardless of a constitution she has derided as “very silly”.

His comments came as the first 12 seats were all declared for Ms Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). He said the party’s strongest showing is in the heartland states, where it appears to be grabbing an 80 percent share of the votes.

The 2008 constitution, drafted by the junta that handed power to President Thein Sein in 2011, reserves a quarter of all seats in parliament for the military. President Thein Sein said, “I’d like to say again that the government and the military will respect and accept the results”.

The president will be chosen by March by the new parliament that emerges from Sunday’s elections, which are expected to produce the most credible results of any vote in the country in more than a half-century.

NLD supporters rallied at its headquarters in Yangon gathered to cheer on the victory of their party, which has won 16 of the 17 parliamentary seats announced so far. The support falls off slightly to 70-50 percent in the ethnic states. “I will accept the new government formed based on the election result”. “She has the skill to lead the country”.

That would be enough to overwhelm the USDP and their military allies – who are gifted 25 percent of seats by a constitution scripted to ensure they still have a major stake in the future.

Htay Oo lost his seat in parliament.

The ruling USDP has fielded 1,122 candidates, while the NLD has 1,123 nominees in the running. Before the vote, the election commission acknowledged that errors on the registration lists were widespread, and it could only guarantee that the lists were 30 percent accurate.

She spoke as her party seemed to be heading for a sweeping victory in historic elections as a powerful former general conceded defeat in his seat on Monday morning.

Suu Kyi herself was more circumspect, but hinted at victory. The other two will become vice presidents. Her two sons are British, as was her late husband. “I’ll run the government and we’ll have a president who will work in accordance with the policies of the NLD”, she had said, according to NPR.

People line up outside a Buddhist prayer hall to vote during the general election in Mandalay, Myanmar, November 8, 2015.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military-backed USDP since 2011.