Myanmar President Thein Sein and the powerful army congratulated democratic champion Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday, after her party trounced the ruling camp in the first free election in 25 years and was closing in on an absolute majority in Parliament.
Thein Sein reiterated that the government would accept the results of the election and agreed to Ms Suu Kyi’s request to hold reconciliation talks soon, although the two are still to agree on the time and location of the negotiations.
Ms Suu Kyi’s Opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) has won over 80 per cent of the seats declared so far in the lower house and is well ahead in the upper house and regional assemblies.
If the final results confirm the trend, Ms Suu Kyi’s triumph will sweep out an old guard of former generals that has run Myanmar since the junta handed over power to Thein Sein’s semi-civilian government in 2011. Such unambiguous endorsement of Ms Suu Kyi’s victory could smooth the post-election transition, ahead of the first session of Parliament on Monday.
“Congratulations ... to the chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi and her party for gathering the support of the people,” read a statement posted on the Facebook page of the presidential spokesman.
Relations between Suu Kyi and the chief of the armed forces are said to be strained
“The government will respect and follow the people’s choice and decision, and work on transferring power peacefully according to the timetable,” said the statement, adding that the President would work with “all other people” to ensure stability in the post-election period. The army has also congratulated the NLD on its win in a statement posted to the Facebook page of the military’s portal, Myawady.
The armed forces continue to wield considerable power in Myanmar’s political institutions, under a Constitution drafted before the end of nearly 50 years of rule. It is unclear how Ms Suu Kyi and the generals will work together. Relations between Ms Suu Kyi and armed forces chief Min Aung Hlaing are said to be strained.
“We would like to congratulate the National League for Democracy because it is leading in the election results,” the army said in the statement. It also said that the army chief would meet Ms Suu Kyi for reconciliation talks after official results. One of the biggest sources of tension between Ms Suu Kyi and the military is a clause in the Constitution barring her from the presidency because her children are foreign nationals. Few doubt the military inserted the clause to rule her out.
Ms Suu Kyi has become increasingly defiant on the presidential clause as the scale of her victory has become apparent. She has made it clear she will run the country regardless of who the NLD elects as president and described the Constitution as “very silly”.
“We’ll find one,” she told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday, referring to her choice of president. “But that won’t stop me from making all the decisions as the leader of the winning party.”
Results so far gave Ms Suu Kyi’s party 179 of 216 seats declared out of the 330 seats not allocated to the military in the lower house. Under the junta-crafted Constitution, a quarter of the seats in both chambers are unelected and reserved for the armed forces. To form Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since the early 1960s, the NLD needs to win more than two-thirds of seats that were contested in Parliament.