Voting smooth in Myanmar’s first free election for 25 years

From street vendors to intellectuals to former political prisoners who suffered torture and imprisonment, pro-democracy supporters were jubilant at the idea of a Suu Kyi victory, and the weakening of a military-backed regime in a country where iron-fisted generals have held sway for half a century.

Although the outcome of the poll will not be clear until later today or early tomorrow, a densely packed crowd blocked a busy road beside the headquarters of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in Yangon as they cheered and waved red flags.

“It is not the time to congratulate our candidates who we think have won the election”, she told supporters and journalists from the balcony of her party’s Yangon headquarters.

The junta nominally gave up power in 2011, and the country has since spun through rapid change, with the quasi-civilian government launching reforms that brought the end of most worldwide sanctions. “But we are sure about those numbers”, he said.

“We are on track to win more than 70% of seats around the country, but the election commission has not officially confirmed yet”, he told AFP.

But that did nothing to dampen enthusiasm for democracy among the 30 million registered voters, many of whom began queuing before dawn to cast their ballot.

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.

A number of leaders of Myanmar’s ruling party and current ministers were initially reported lost by local media in Sunday’s general election, while NLD is leading as victor of the election.

Early signs pointed to a strong showing by the opposition NLD, which swept all the seats in the first small batch of results announced, while the leader of the ruling USDP signaled his party had fared poorly.

Many people still remember the 1990 national election in which the party led by Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, was widely considered to have won.

“We have to find out the reason why we lost”, Htay Oo, a close ally of President Thein Sein said.

Of them, 323 constituencies are for contesting seats of House of Representatives, 168 for House of Nationalities, 630 for the Region or State Parliament and 29 for ethnic representatives. Parliament will only elect a new president in February.

On Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping shook hands with Taiwanese President Massachusetts Ying-jeou at a hotel in Singapore in the first meeting between leaders of the two former Cold War enemies since 1949.

The NLD would need an overwhelming win to take the presidency because of the seats reserved for the military, all of which now go to the USDP.

Lyrics to the song, called “The Strong Peacock”, in reference to the party’s symbol, became popular with supporters nationwide during the campaign period.