Suu Kyi’s party wins historic majority in Myanmar polls

Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party yesterday clinched enough seats in parliament to elect a president and form a government when incoming lawmakers convene next year.

Results have trickled in since the weekend, and on Friday the election commission announced the latest batch of seats that pushed the NLD over the threshold to secure an absolute majority in parliament.

An interim tally by the country’s election commission released Friday showed that the NLD has captured a single majority of the 664 seats in Parliament, which includes uncontested seats reserved for members of the military.

– 40: The number of seats the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party has won so far.

Suu Kyi, who was held under house arrest for 15 years for trying to bring democracy to Myanmar, is constitutionally barred from becoming president despite being leader of her party.

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.

The Myanmar armed forces, or Tatmadaw, also has an automatic hold of a quarter of seats in parliament, meaning the opposition needed to win at least 329 seats to make up a majority (67%) of both houses.

She has become increasingly defiant on the presidential clause as the scale of her victory has become apparent, making it clear she will run the country regardless of who the NLD elects as president. Military generals running the country have engaged in “crony capitalism” for years but have admitted defeat at the polls and are prepared to hand over power.

While he welcomed the election results, Gint Kam Lian said his party was undecided whether it would support the National League for Democracy’s selected presidential candidate.

Ban acknowledged the “courage and vision” of Thein Sein, whose quasi-civilian government he said had led Myanmar to Sunday’s election through reforms it implemented since coming to power.

Myanmar’s military has pledged to respect the results of the election.

The landmark election is seen as a test of the powerful military’s willingness to let the country continue along a path toward full democracy, after decades of military-dominated rule in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The military automatically receives 25% of the seats in each house under the constitution.

USA president Barack Obama called Suu Kyi to congratulate her and her party’s successful campaign and also spoke to president Thein Sein to commend him on the historic polls, the White House said.

Their conciliatory messages appeared to end lingering fears that the military might overturn the result, as it did when the NLD won a previous election by a landslide in 1990. She says she will rule as party leader above the president, whom she will choose. Does Suu Kyi intend to set up a puppet government even while she herself has been calling for greater democratization?