Suu Kyi set for landmark win in Burma elections
KAWHMU, Burma—democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi looked set to make history in Burma (Myanmar) elections on Sunday, but complaints of ballot-tampering cast fresh doubt on the fairness of the parliamentary vote.
Many supporters waited for hours in searing heat to glimpse the 66-year-old Nobel laureate, who is running for office for the first time in the by-elections, after being locked up by the junta for most of the past 22 years.
The 45 seats at stake are not enough to threaten the ruling party’s majority, but a seat in parliament would give the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader a chance to shape legislation for the first time.
Observers believe Myanmar’s new quasicivilian government wants Suu Kyi to win a place in parliament to burnish its reform credentials and smooth the way for an easing of Western sanctions.
The polls were however marred somewhat by allegations of ballot-paper irregularities, notably that wax had been put over the check box for the NLD that could be rubbed off later to cancel the vote.
“This is happening around the country. The election commission is responsible for what is occurring,” NLD spokesperson Nyan Win told AFP.
“I have sent a complaint letter to the union election commission. If it continues like this it can harm the prestige of the election.” In the run-up to the vote, the party decried alleged intimidation of candidates and other irregularities.
Suu Kyi said on Friday that the vote could not be considered “a genuinely free and fair election” but stopped short of announcing a boycott.
A 2010 general election, won by the military’s political proxies, was plagued by complaints of cheating and the exclusion of Suu Kyi, who was released from seven straight years of house arrest shortly afterwards.
The seats being contested on Sunday were made vacant by MPS who joined the government. Polling was to close at 0930 GMT and official results are expected within a week, although the parties may declare how they fared earlier.
In rural villages dotted be- tween parched fields, people stood in front of their thatched bamboo homes and waved enthusiastically as Suu Kyi’s convoy snaked past on Sunday, whipping up thick clouds of dust.
A crowd of supporters and journalists mobbed the activist as she visited a polling station in the rural constituency of Kawhmu, where her main rival is a former military doctor with the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party.
Voters, many in traditional ethnic Karen dress, queued patiently in the heat to cast their votes.
“I’ll vote for Mother Suu because I love and cherish her,” said 43-year-old laborer San San Win.
“We don’t expect anything from her. We’re really glad she came to our village,” she added.
The NLD swept to a landslide election victory in 1990, but the generals who ruled the country never recognized the result.
Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, was not a candidate herself then because she was under house arrest.