News Digest

Now for the hard part: Suu Kyi on brink of power after thumping election wins

Fresh results from Myanmar’s election on Tuesday showed the opposition taking control of most regional assemblies as well as forming the next government, handing democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi sweeping powers and reshaping the political landscape. Results dribbled out by the election commission have shown that the former junta’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was not just beaten in the polls, it was trounced. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) said its own tally of results posted at polling stations around the country showed it was on track to take more than two-thirds of seats that were contested in parliament, enough to form Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since the early 1960s.

This was a hell of a step forward for the democratic process in Burma. Now comes the hard part.

Daniel Russel, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia

The election commission said on Tuesday the NLD had won 78 of the 88 seats declared so far for the 440-strong lower house. No seats have been declared in the upper house. Official results also showed that Sunday’s election had handed the NLD a landslide win in the battle for regional assemblies. However, while the USDP has been cut down and much of the establishment shaken by the extent of Suu Kyi’s victory, the army remains a formidable power. Although the military has said it would accept the outcome of the election, analysts say a period of uncertainty still looms for the former Burma because it is not clear how Suu Kyi would share power easily with the generals.