YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar’s Sunday election is in full swing, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s party defending a strong military five years ago to retain power.
More than 90 parties are vying for seats in the lower and upper houses of parliament, while elections are also being held at the state and regional levels.
With opposition in disarray, Suu Kyi, the country’s leader with the title of state adviser, is Myanmar’s most popular politician. But his government has fallen short of expectations, with economic growth doing little to alleviate widespread poverty and reduce tensions among the country’s militant ethnic groups.
There are over 37 million people voting here, including millions of first-timers. Fear of the coronavirus and security measures put in place to accommodate it could hurt voters. The traditional campaign was severely limited by social distance and quarantine in some areas.
Suu Kyi, 75, cast her ballot late last month in the capital, Naypyidaw, as citizens aged 60 and over were encouraged to vote in advance, as well as those forced to stay away from their home constituencies by the coronavirus.
Voters in Yangon, the country’s largest city, are out early.
“We need someone to lead our country,” said Sushil Chand, who is in the paper business. “Thus, voting today is crucial for us as an opportunity to get a good leader.”
Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory in the last election in 2015, ending more than five decades of military-directed rule in the country.
His party’s main challenger, as it was five years ago, is the military-backed Union Unity and Development Party, which has led the opposition in parliament.
The ability of Suu Kyi’s administration to run the country has been haphazardly articulated by the article of the constitution giving 25% seats in the military parliament by giving 25% seats in the conflict, thereby blocking constitutional reforms.
The Election Commission said it would begin announcing the results on Monday morning. But, it could take up to a week to collect all the votes, some of which will come from remote forest areas.
With signs of a keen interest in policy debate, the vote is seen as a referendum on Suu Kyi’s leadership.
Explaining part of the reason why Yangon-based political analyst Richard Horsey has an ethnic hand next to Suu Kyi in the greenery of Myanmar, where his ethnic Burmese majority lives, Yangon-based political analyst Richard Horsey said, Reliable alternative, not to put forward. ”
Even more important for the prospects of the ruling party, he said, “personal support, love but also many people do it for Aung San Suu Kyi herself, how the government administers, how the economy does and so on.”
Love does not extend to the border, states occupied by numerous ethnic minorities, who have been in search of political autonomy for more than decades.
Suu Kyi’s ambitious plans for reconciliation with minorities have been established. Their grievances have repeatedly spread to armed rebellions, posing a major threat to national security.
To ensure victory over the Federal Unity and Development Party candidates, ethnic political parties collaborated with Suu Kyi’s party in 2015 on a constituency-by-constituency basis.
But this year, ethnic parties frustrated by their failure to reach a deal to expand their political rights will only support their candidates.
The main controversy erupted when the Election Commission canceled the polls when parties critical of the government were determined to win seats. The commission blamed the armed uprising, but critics said the agency was bidding for the NLD. More than 1 million people have declared them deprived.
Concern for the country’s foreign friends – the plight of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority did not play a real role in the campaign. A 2017 anti-atrocity campaign by Myanmar’s military forced about 740,000 Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh, leading to a possible world court investigation into the genocide.
Long-standing prejudice against the Rohingya, many consider illegal immigrants from South Asia, even though their families have settled in Myanmar for generations, depriving most of Myanmar of basic rights, including citizenship and voting.
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