International election observers endorsed Myanmar’s landmark election as credible, but warned that a transition of power would be limited despite what is shaping up to be a historic loss for the military-run government. As of Tuesday evening, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy had secured 107 seats in the 664-seat legislature, according to official results, with only seven for the army-linked incumbent party and a handful for smaller ethnic minority parties. Soe Thane, the economics minister in the cabinet of Myanmar President Thein Sein, also won a seat, though he was running as an independent rather than with his party. A final count isn’t expected for several more days.
But senior National League official Win Htein, a confidant of Ms. Suu Kyi, said the party calculated it had secured over 75% of available legislative seats based on their own exit polls and information from regional branches of the election commission—enough to provide them an overall majority despite a law that grants the military one quarter of the seats.
“The figure could grow,” Mr. Win Htein said. “We haven’t heard from our people in the more distant parts of the country, like Shan state and Kachin state.”
Full Article: Myanmar Election Monitors Warn Over Rigid Army Power – WSJ.