Suu Kyi party will have to wait till March to gain power

Myanmar’s President Thein Sein yesterday said historic polls won in a thumping landslide by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party were the outcome of his government’s reforms, and vowed a smooth transition of power.

“This is quite incredible; nowhere else in the world is there such a gap between the end of the elections and the forming of the new administration and certainly it is something about which we should all be concerned”, she told reporters ahead of the elections.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) also bowed to pressure from Ma Ba Tha, asking Muslims in the party not to run.

Senior National League for Democracy officials have confirmed to The Myanmar Times that this top priority will be founded on a political process involving a dialogue between all the armed ethnic groups, political parties, the government and the Tatmadaw.

Suu Kyi won points in the past by confronting the military, but now that they will be partners in ruling the country, she will need the generals on her side in order to push through her party’s agenda.

“If you look at the parliament and think who (among the USDP) will be there again in the spring, it’s literally a handful”, said Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar’s economy at Sydney’s Macquarie University.

He made the comments at a meeting of political leaders in Yangon.

The Nobel laureate has nevertheless pledged to rule an NLD government through a puppet president, without revealing a candidate or setting out how the arrangement would work.

The president commended Suu Kyi for her “tireless efforts and sacrifice over so many years” to promote a democracy in her country, according to a White House statement.

The military rulers did not like the outcome of the election, annulled the election results and put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.

He appeared sanguine about the resounding defeat of his army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which will slip into opposition in the next parliament – due to sit from February.

“It will have a strong impact on everything, including the nationwide ceasefire agreement”, he told Reuters, referring to a deal signed in October between the government and eight ethnic rebel groups. But the country’s military leadership refused to honor the results and instead charted a course of authoritarian rule that included the imprisonment of many pro-democracy advocates.

Asked what would happen if the NLD and the Tatmadaw would have problems tackling the “all-inclusive” aspect, he replied that the country’s leaders should not forget the root of Myanmar’s difficulties.

In opposition, the NLD had a loose alliance with such groups, but in power, it will have to make hard choices about how to balance national, military and minority interests.

Officially making up 4% of the country’s 51 million people – although others say the figure is much higher – Muslims found themselves a target of hatred in the lead up to the polls.