U.S. congratulates Suu Kyi but China makes no move

Five years to the day after Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest, her National League for Democracy party officially clinched victory Friday in historic elections, with a largeand growing majority in parliament shaping up as the strongest challenge to military dominance in over half a century.

Mr Obama also called Ms Suu Kyi and her Opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which has won about 80 per cent of the seats declared so far in the lower house, to commend them for their success, which puts her on course to form the new Cabinet.

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.

Daw Suu Kyi told the BBC: “the results have been coming in steadily and we will probably get around 75% of the Union legislature”.

“I promise everybody who is living in this country proper protection in accordance with the law, and in accordance with the norms of human rights”, she said.

Recording her appreciation for the incumbent President Thein Sein, Gandhi said that without his statesman like leadership and guidance, this democratic transition would not have been possible.

The announcement, made by the election commission Friday, comes on the fifth anniversary of Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest, where the 70-year-old had been for the better part of 20 years.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency by a provision in the current Constitution, but she has said that she will choose a president to serve as her proxy.

Beijing has for decades been close to neighbouring Myanmar’s authoritarian military leaders, who voters overwhelmingly rejected in historic polls. There had been concerns that the military-backed USDP might not concede power to the NLD, according to the Guardian This happened in the country’s 1990 election when the military refused to recognise the NLD’s victory.

The election has won praise from observers for its smooth, peaceful passing, in a country where violence and repression has normally met democratic milestones.

Myanmar’s government has denied Rohingya Muslims citizenship, and hundreds died in clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012. She entered parliament two years later after the party swept a series of by-elections. The constitution requires approval by 75 percent of parliamentarians, an extremely unlikely outcome given that the military controls 25 percent of the seats in Parliament.

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.

The present term of the government will expire at the end of March 2016.