The ruling party of Burmese State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi secured an absolute majority in Myanmar’s election, official results showed yesterday, in a poll disputed by the military-aligned opposition and criticized by rights groups.
Her National League for Democracy (NLD) had declared a landslide victory based on its own tallies, prompting street celebrations by supporters.
However, official figures were still being returned five days after the ballot, only the second such polls since the nation emerged from outright military rule in 2011.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Results announced by the Burmese Union Election Commission yesterday showed that the NLD won 368 seats — more than 50 percent of the Burmese Assembly of the Union, even taking into account the one-quarter of seats reserved for the military under the constitution.
The party is on track to improve on its landslide win in 2015, despite widespread disillusionment in many ethnic minority areas.
The military-aligned opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has been trounced across the country, winning just 25 seats by yesterday.
Yangon-based analyst Khin Zaw Win said that the coming months would be messy, adding that the situation is a consequence of the commission being filled with “yes-men and incompetents.”
The constitution states that all commission members are to be appointed by the government.
However, even if some results were overturned, “the NLD landslide is so large that they wouldn’t alter the overall outcome,” Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group said.
The commission’s cancelation of polls across many ethnic minority areas — ostensibly for security reasons — has been criticized.
The move left 1.5 million voters disenfranchised, tilting the playing field in favor of the NLD.
The NLD on Thursday wrote to all ethnic minority political parties, promising that it would “prioritize” their wishes, but some will conclude that the electoral process does not work for them, Horsey said.
Tensions are high in Rakhine state, where fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and the military has displaced 200,000.
In unprecedented communication between the foes, the AA requested that the army and government hold by-elections as soon as possible in areas where the vote had been canceled.
Rights groups condemned Sunday’s vote, which left virtually all Rohingya Muslims disenfranchised, either languishing in Bangladeshi refugee camps or stripped of citizenship in Myanmar.
Even though Suu Kyi’s international reputation was badly hurt over the Rohingya crisis, she remains widely revered within Myanmar.
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