Suu Kyi Party Wins Myanmar Polls

Local Editor

Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition on Friday secured a parliamentary majority from last weekend's polls that will allow it to elect a president and form a government in a historic shift in power from the army.

Confirmation of the landslide win comes five years since Suu Kyi was released from house arrest by the former government military.

The election, the first Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy [NLD] party has contested since 1990, saw a huge turnout that has yielded more than 80 percent of seats for the party.
After a drip-feed of results from the Union Election Commission, the party on Friday sailed through the two-thirds majority it needs to rule, claiming 348 parliamentary seats.

The government now beckons for the NLD in a seismic change of the political landscape in a country controlled for five decades by the military.
Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency by a junta-scripted constitution, which also guarantees the army a 25 percent bloc of seats.

She has already vowed to govern from "above the president" saying she will circumnavigate the charter ban by appointing a proxy for the top office.

The win represents a huge stride in Suu Kyi's decades-long journey from political prisoner to the heart of power.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team