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YANGON: Myanmar’s ruling party said on Monday (Nov.9) that it had won enough seats in parliament to form the next government, after reporting an advantage based on its unofficial vote count of the country’s second general election since the end of the strict military regime.
Party spokesman Myo Nyunt told Reuters that internal reports showed that the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, had won the required 322 seats in parliament, although the electoral commission had not announced. official results.
“We thank people,” he said. “For the people, for the party, this is a very encouraging electoral result.”
The Election Commission is expected to announce the official results later on Monday.
Sunday’s elections were seen as a referendum on the fledgling democratic government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD, which remains very popular at home but has seen its reputation abroad collapse amid allegations of genocide against the Muslim minority. Rohingya.
In the elections there are 315 seats in the 425-member lower house and 161 seats in the 217-seat upper house of parliament.
The NLD came to power after a landslide in 2015 in which it won a total of 390 seats, a benchmark that Myo Nyunt said he hoped to surpass, according to data compiled from reports by party agents at polling stations. of all country.
Supporters of the National League for Democracy wave flags outside the party’s office in Mandalay. (Photo: AFP / Ye Naing Ye)
A spokesperson for the second-largest party, the military-backed Union, Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), could not immediately be reached for comment.
The army, which ruled Myanmar for nearly 50 years until it began to withdraw from civilian politics in 2011, controls a quarter of the seats in both houses of parliament, under a constitution that Aung San Suu Kyi and his allies want to amend.
The NLD was expected to win, but with a smaller margin following the emergence of new parties and ethnic minority parties that gained support in some regions.
SOME CANNOT VOTE
In contrast to the wave of optimism that received the landslide victory of the NLD in 2015, Myanmar entered this election under a cloud of a growing outbreak of COVID-19, economic difficulties and increasing ethnic conflict.
Although Myanmar is experiencing an average of 1,100 new COVID-19 cases per day, compared to a handful in early August, fears that the virus did not deter Sunday’s turnout among 37 million registered voters.
The Election Commission has yet to release data on turnout, but in the largest city, Yangon, long lines of voters wearing masks and shields have formed since dawn.
But more than a million people across the country were unable to vote after the polls were canceled due to insurgencies.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim minority confined to camps and villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the majority without citizenship, were also unable to vote.
The Democracy and Human Rights Party, a Rohingya party, said in a statement that it was “completely disappointed” that its people had been deprived of their rights.
The electoral commission has said that polls in conflict-affected areas had to be canceled for security reasons and that only citizens had the right to vote.
Most Rohingya are not considered citizens of Myanmar, but rather immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, although many may have family roots spanning many generations.
The United Nations has said there was genocidal intent in a 2017 army crackdown that forced 730,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.
Myanmar refuses to say that its security forces were conducting legitimate operations against Rohingya militants.
