SUU KYI DETHRONES JUNTA WITH LANDSLIDE WIN IN MYANMAR POLLS

ROUTED Ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party won just 40 seats out of 664

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party attained a historic majority in Myanmar’s Parliament on Friday, making it possible for them to form the Southeast Asian country’s first truly civilian government in more than half a century.

While complete results from last Sunday’s elections will take more time to be tallied, the state election commission announced that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy had won 37 additional seats—pushing it over the threshold of 329 seats needed for a majority in the two-house Parliament.

The party with a combined parliamentary majority is able to select the next president, who can then name a Cabinet and form a new government. The 329 figure represents a majority in the 664-member Parliament because voting was not held in seven constituencies due to unrest.

The ruling militarybacked Union Solidarity and Development Party had won just 40 seats as of Friday afternoon.

The transfer of power should take place after the new Parliament meets early next year and votes on a new president, along with two vice presidents.

The NLD will face a variety of challenges—the huge tide of pent-up expectations evidenced by the vote. Its lack of experience in public administration is another big question mark.

But the victory is a sweet second chance for the party, which also won a landslide victory in the first election it contested, in 1990, only to see the results annulled by the military, and many of its leading members harassed and jailed.

Suu Kyi herself was put under house arrest prior to the 1990 election, and spent 15 of the next 22 years mostly confined to her lakeside villa in Yangon. She was under house arrest when she won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, and was freed most recently exactly five years ago.

A major issue for the NLD will be how to deal with the country’s fractious ethnic minorities, who for decades have been conducting on-again, off-again insurgencies seeking greater autonomy. In opposition, the NLD was in a loose alliance with such groups, but in power, it will have to make hard choices about how to balance national, military and minority interests.

This is a momentous opportunity for the people of Burma. We had been very focused on this election... critical milestone in evaluating Burma’s democratic transition.

BEN RHODES, White House official There is much hard work that remains ahead on Myanmar’s democratic journey and towards making their future elections truly inclusive.

STEPHANE DUJARRIC, UN spokesman