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YANGON: Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party has won enough parliamentary seats to form the next government, according to official general election results released on Friday (November 13).
The latest batch of results from Sunday’s vote confirmed that 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 out of the 412 seats that have been declared, and the results of 64 more have yet to be announced.
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The comfortable victory will be a welcome boost for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has had a turbulent first term and has struggled to meet the public’s high expectations.
He is tasked with developing a country that suffered nearly 50 years of isolation and decline under a strict military regime, years of which he was under house arrest.
Even now, his government must govern with military participation, particularly in the areas of security and defense, under a constitution drawn up during the rule of the generals.
The NLD won by a similar margin in the last elections of 2015, the first free vote since the end of the military regime.
This time, the vote was seen as a referendum on the Suu Kyi government, which is very popular at home. But his reputation abroad has collapsed due to allegations of genocide against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority, which he denies.
READ: Ruling Aung San Suu Kyi Party claims resounding electoral victory in Myanmar
The main opposition party, the army-backed Union, Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), had won 24 seats, according to partial official results.
The USDP raised objections Wednesday and demanded a new vote as soon as possible “to have an election that is free, fair, impartial and free from unfair campaigning.”
A USDP spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
National and international observers said the vote went smoothly and without major irregularities.
The electoral commission said Wednesday that any allegations of wrongdoing came 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.
