Supporters of the National League for Democracy celebrate at party headquarters after the general election, in Yangon
YANGON, Nov 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The ruling party of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has won enough parliamentary seats to form the next government, according to official general election results released on Friday.
The latest batch of results from Sunday’s vote confirmed Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) had secured the 322 seats in the bicameral legislature needed to form a government.
The NLD has taken 346 seats of the 412 seats that have been declared, with results from 64 more yet to be announced.The comfortable win will be a welcome boost for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate who has had a turbulent first term and struggled to meet high public expectations.
The NLD won by a similar margin in the last election in 2015, the first free vote since the end of military rule.This time, the ballot was seen as a referendum on Suu Kyi’s government, which is hugely popular at home.
However, its reputation abroad has collapsed due to accusations of genocide against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority, which it denies.
The main opposition party, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), had won 24 seats, according to the partial official results.
The USDP raised objections on Wednesday and demanded a new vote as soon as possible “in order to have an election that is free, fair, unbiased and free from unfair campaigning”.
A USDP spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday. International and domestic observers said the vote went smoothly and without major irregularities.
The election commission on Wednesday said any allegations of irregularities were from a minority of participants.The NLD has also demanded proof of wrongdoing, while the military, in an earlier statement, said the election had been carried out successfully.
As of Friday morning, the NLD party has won 346 seats in the Union Parliament — the House of Representatives (Lower House) and the House of Nationalities (Upper House), passing the target parliamentary seats to win, according to the UEC’s figures.
According to the UEC’s latest figures, the NLD party has secured 225 seats in the House of Representatives (Lower House), 121 seats in the House of Nationalities (Upper House), 434 seats in the Regional or State Parliaments and eight ethnic minority seats in the Regional or State Parliaments, respectively.
According to the 2008 Constitution, the military possesses 25 percent of the 642 totals seats in the Union Parliament and the winning party in the general elections needs to secure more than half of the total seats to form a new government.
A total of 5,639 candidates including 1,106 candidates from the NLD and 1,089 from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) ran in this year’s multiparty general elections.
The USDP has won 58 parliamentary seats including 25 seats for the Union Parliament and 33 for the Regional or State Parliaments, the UEC’s figures showed.
The ruling NLD party won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the last general elections on Nov. 8, 2015, and has been running the government since 2016. — NNN-AGENCIES
