IN BURMA, A DAY FOR DEMOCRACY
In first national election since 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi finally is able to cast a vote
Sunday was a historic day in Burma: The nation held its first contested national election in 25 years. And it was the first time opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, center, whose party was expecting victory, was able to vote.
“If the outcome is credible and without any vote fixing, then the Burmese people may be very surprised.” Journalist Aung Zaw
RANGOON, BURMA Millions of Burmese voted Sunday in their first contested national elections in 25 years to bring this country from long-time military rule toward democracy — a day marked by excitement and no reports of major violence.
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party is expected to win parliamentary elections, but preliminary results won’t be available until Monday and could take all week. It was not clear when the final tally will be known.
Suu Kyi, 70, a Nobel laureate who heads the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), voted Sunday at the polling station near her Rangoon home where she spent 15 years under house arrest during the earlier military dictatorship.
Sunday’s election is the first time Suu Kyi was actually able to vote. She was locked up during the last openly contested vote in 1990, the first election allowed by the junta since it took power in 1962. Her party won that vote by a landslide, but a shocked army refused to recognize the results.
The National League is expected to prevail again against the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, which is backed by the military and came to power in 2010 elections, which marked the end of decades of military rule and the installment of a nominally civilian government. The NLD and other opposition parties boycotted those elections, claiming they were rigged.
“This is my first time voting and I’m very excited,” said Han Myint Kyu, 26, a bookkeeper in Rangoon who waited in line for more than an hour to cast his ballot. “We need to change and de- mocracy is the best way to do it.”
Burma, also known as Myanmar, still provides obstacles to the opposition. Regardless of the results, the military will hold 25% of the seats in parliament as well as control of the army, police and border affairs. Suu Kyi’s party must win two-thirds of Sunday’s vote to control a majority of parliament’s 498 seats.
“We are expecting that the NLD is likely to win a plurality but not an absolute majority,” said Christian Lewis, a political risk analyst with Eurasia Group.
He said the Union Solidarity party only needs a modest showing to form a coalition with the military. “I think (the Union Solidarity party) is only aiming for 10% to 15% at which point the 25% allocated to the military is going to make them very competitive with the NLD,” he said.
Other observers were more optimistic. “If the outcome is credi- ble and it is without any vote fixing, then I think the Burmese people may be very pleasantly surprised,” said Aung Zaw, founder and editor-in-chief of the news magazine The Irrawaddy.
While Sunday’s election appeared to run smoothly, there have been concerns of irregularities in the voting rolls and disenfranchisement of minorities, especially the Rohingya, a Muslim minority. Human Rights Watch has declared the elections “fundamentally flawed.”
Parliament will choose the president next year. Suu Kyi is barred from becoming president because of a constitutional clause that excludes anyone with close foreign relatives from holding the office. Suu Kyi’s late husband was a British national, and she has two British sons.