Suu Kyi’s Party Heads for Sweep In Myanmar’s Election
The party of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi claimed victory Monday in virtually every seat in four states where results of Myanmar’s historic parliamentary election were known, signaling a sweep that could give it the presidency and further loosen the military’s stranglehold.
The announcement at the headquarters of the National League for Democracy set off a new round of jubilation among supporters.
Even without official results, it was clear that the Union Solidarity Development Party was facing a rout. The party is made up former junta members who ruled Myanmar for a half-century and as a quasi-civilian government since 2011.
Although the government’s Union Election Commission did not announce the outcome of the Yangon races, the NLD has stationed representatives at counting centers and kept its own tallies. The election commission has been slow in releasing the numbers.
The United States congratulated Myanmar on the election but noted that more work remains ahead on the country’s road to democracy.
A constitutional amendment bars anyone with a foreign spouse or child from being president or vice president, meaning Suu Kyi is not eligible for those posts. Her two sons are British, as was her late husband.
Suu Kyi has said, however, that she will act as the country’s leader if the NLD wins the presidency, saying she will be “above the president.”
This article appeared in print on page 2 of edition of Hamodia.
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