Aung San Suu Kyi remains a heroine for many inhabitants of the core of the Bamar majority.
Yangon, Myanmar:
Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) said on Monday it was confident of securing a landslide victory in Myanmar as official results leaked following weekend’s coronavirus-disrupted elections. end.
Millions of people lined up for hours to vote on Sunday – only the second national election since the country emerged from outright military rule in 2011.
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi remains a heroine to many in the hearts of the Bamar majority, despite a global reputation left in ruins by her handling of the Rohingya crisis and widespread disillusionment in many areas of ethnic minorities.
NLD supporters celebrated late Sunday night – and hundreds more drove convoys north of Yangon on Monday, dressed in red and flying the party’s fighting peacock flag.
Party spokesman Myo Nyunt told AFP that reports from party agents across the country suggested the NLD had “won a landslide victory”.
“We will not only win the 322 seats we need to form a government, but we plan to break our record of 390 in 2015”.
In 2015, the NLD won a landslide, but was constitutionally forced into a difficult power-sharing deal with the military, which controls three key ministries and a quarter of parliamentary seats.
The army-aligned USDP opposition, Myanmar’s next largest party, said it was still collecting information and would not comment.
The official confirmation of the overall result is not expected for a few days.
The surge in coronavirus cases did not deter millions from voting on Sunday.
Face masks were mandatory, but crowds have ignored strict physical distancing measures at many polling stations at a time when parts of the country are locked up.
Suu Kyi refused to delay the poll and many observers fear the day may have been a huge, widespread event.
But voter Kyaw Min Han, 65, told AFP he was “very impressed” with the government organization as well as polling station staff and volunteers.
Rights groups, however, criticized the elections, which saw nearly two million people stripped of their voting rights out of an electorate of 37 million.
Votes were canceled in many ethnic minority areas for “security reasons” – as nearly all of the remaining 600,000 Rohingya Muslims in the country have long been deprived of their citizenship and rights.
“A fundamental principle of elections under international law is universal and equal suffrage and this has not happened,” said Ismail Wolff of Fortify Rights.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
