After her
release from years of house arrest just 17 months ago, democracy activist Aung
San Suu Kyi has secured a seat in Myanmar's parliament. Her NLD party won all
of the seats that it contested.
Preliminary
results from Myanmar's weekend by-election indicated on Monday that Aung San
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) had scored a decisive victory.
The NLD
reportedly won all of the 44 seats it contested in the election, with a total
of 45 seats up for grabs in the ballot. Suu Kyi, meanwhile, secured over 90
percent of the vote in the Kawhmu constituency, according to NLD official Soe
Win. The official results were expected within a week.
A European
Union official invited to monitor the vote hailed "very encouraging
signs" at the roughly dozen polling stations her team visited.
"However,
that's definitely not enough to assume that it is indicative of how the process
was conducted in other parts of the country and certainly not enough to talk
about credibility of elections," Malgorzata Wasilewska said.
The NLD
complained of election irregularities, claiming that wax had been put over the
check box for the party on ballots, which could be rubbed off later to change
the vote. In the run-up to the election, the party reported the intimidation of
candidates, and Suu Kyi said the poll could not be considered a "genuinely
free and fair election."
US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Istanbul for a meeting of the
"Friends of Syria Contact Group," said Washington was committed to
supporting the nascent democratic reforms in isolated Myanmar, also known as
Burma.
"While
the results have not yet been announced, the United States congratulates the
people who participated, many for their first time in the campaign and election
process," Clinton said.
Small
foothold
The NLD's
few dozen seats, however, are a fraction of those held by the military-backed,
ostensibly civilian government. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development
Party (USDP) still occupies most of the seats in the 664 member parliament.
Myanmar's
long-ruling military junta handed over power to the USDP after the party won
the 2010 elections, which were plagued by accusations of fraud and the
exclusion of Suu Kyi from the contest. Although the party is backed by the
military, the government of President Thein Sein - himself a former general -
has implemented a series of unexpected reforms.
Sein's
administration has released political prisoners such as Suu Kyi and signed
truces with rebel groups in a bid to convince Western nations to ease sanctions
against his country.
"The
pace of change has been breathtaking," Robert Cooper, a counselor to EU
foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told the news agency Reuters.
The
weekend's by-election was precipitated by 45 legislators vacating their seats
to enter the government. The next general election is scheduled for
2015.
slk/gsw (Reuters, AFP, dpa)
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