Suu Kyi’s party heading for a landslide win

Former junta's political party concedes defeat after NLD sweeps almost all seats counted so far.

Leader of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy party, Aung San Suu Kyi, center, delivers a speech from a balcony of the party headquarters in Yangon, Myanmar, on November 9, 2015 ahead of the finalShow more

YANGON // Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy was on course last night for a landslide victory in Myanmar’s historic parliamentary election.

The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, which was created by the former junta that ruled for half a century and is led by retired military officers, conceded defeat.

“We lost,” said the party’s acting chairman Htay Oo after Myanmar’s first free nationwide election in a quarter of a century.

The NLD said its own tally of results showed it was on track to win more than 70 per cent of the seats being contested in parliament, above the two-thirds threshold it needs to form Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since the early 1960s.

The results set off a new round of jubilation among red-shirted supporters.

The NLD said it had won 44 of the 45 lower house seats and all 12 of the upper house seats from the party stronghold of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city. It also won all 38 seats in Ayeyarwaddy state, all but one of the 40 in Bago and 11 out of 19 lower house seats and all 10 upper house seats in Mon state.

The trend was expected to continue in Myanmar’s remaining 10 states.

Although the government’s Union Election Commission did not announce the outcome of the Yangon races, the NLD has stationed representatives at counting centres and kept its own tallies that were relayed to its headquarters. The election commission has been slow in releasing the numbers.

Ms Suu Kyi, 70, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, urged supporters not to provoke rivals who mostly represent the former junta.

Earlier, party spokesman Win Htein said the NLD had secured about 70 per cent of the vote counted by midday. Another spokesman, Nyan Win, put the number at 90 per cent. “We will win a landslide,” Nyan Win said.

If those figures are confirmed by official results, it would mean that Ms Suu Kyi’s party would not only dominate parliament, but could also secure the presidency despite handicaps built into the constitution.

“I want Mother Suu to win in this election,” said street trader Ma Khine. “She has the skill to lead the country. I respect her so much. I love her. She will change our country in a very good way.”

The NLD was widely expected to finish with the most seats in parliament. A two-thirds majority would give it control over the executive posts under Myanmar’s complicated parliamentary-presidency system, which reserves a quarter of the 664 seats for the military.

The military and the largest parties in the upper house and the lower house will each nominate a candidate for president. After January 31, all 664 legislators will cast ballots and the top vote-getter will become president, while the other two will be vice presidents. A massive majority in parliament would allow the NLD to take the presidency and one of the vice president posts.

Capturing the presidency and parliament would give the NLD power over legislation, economic policy and foreign relations, although the constitution guarantees that the military will keep control of the ministries of defence, interior and border security. Also, the military will be able to block constitutional amendments.

A constitutional amendment bars anyone with a foreign spouse or child from being president or vice president, meaning Ms Suu Kyi is not eligible for those posts.

Her two sons are British, as was her late husband.

She has said, however, that she will act as the country’s leader if the NLD wins the presidency, saying she will be “above the president”.

In her first post-election comments, Ms Suu Kyi told supporters at NLD headquarters: “I want to remind you all that even candidates who didn’t win have to accept the winners, but it is important not to provoke the candidates who didn’t win to make them feel bad.”

As he listened to the speech, Khin Maung Htay, 71, described his joy. “The whole country is happy. I think she is a perfect leader for our country and a woman of perfection,” he said.

The junta, which seized power in a 1962 coup, annulled the results when Ms Suu Kyi’s party won a sweeping election victory in 1990. A new vote was held in 2010, but the opposition boycotted it, calling the election laws unfair.

The USDP won by default and took office in 2011 under president Thein Sein, a former general who began political and economic reforms to end Myanmar’s isolation and jump-start its moribund economy. But the USDP was battered in a 2012 by-election in which the NLD won 43 of the 44 parliamentary seats it contested.

* Associated Press with additional reporting by Reuters