NLD tipped to win Myanmar election

NLD tipped to win Myanmar election

Suu Kyi's party set to upset military reign

YANGON: Millions of people voted on Sunday in Myanmar's landmark election, with a massive turnout that could catapult Aung San Suu Kyi's party to power and finally end decades of military control.

Though results will not be known until Monday, some senior military leaders said yesterday they would accept the outcome.

In a country that was under military rule for almost half a century, many of the eligible 30 million voters cast ballots for the first time in what was billed as the nation's freest election ever. It was the first time even for Mrs Suu Kyi, the epitome of the democracy movement who had defied the junta for decades.

Vote counting began immediately, and hundreds of supporters gathered under umbrellas at the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party's office hoping to see results. But NLD leaders announced that results would not be available until tomorrow at the earliest, and that the 70-year-old Suu Kyi would not address the crowd as expected, urging their supporters to return tomorrow.

Soon after the polls were closed, Union Election Commission deputy director Thant Zin Aung said "about 80%" of voters turned out in what international election monitors called "a remarkable day" full of excitement and energy.

At the NLD headquarters in Yangon, Sai Zayarwin, 28, a freelance IT trainer, told the Bangkok Post Myanmar needs to change and only the NLD can deliver. So he's happy seeing the news of vote counts on the screen.

Though being an ethnic Shan, he voted for the NLD but he's quite worried that in some ethnic states such as Shan, Rakhine, and Kachin, the ethnic political parties might get more votes.

He is also disappointed that Mrs Suu Kyi could not come to thank the voters last night.

"But at least I'm happy to be here together with others to celebrate the victory," he said in English.

In Myanmar's second largest city of Mandalay, Myint Myint, 95, was perched on a plastic chair carried by three men along a dirt path and past a snaking line of voters to the local polling station. "A vote is a vote," her grand-daughter, Phyo Kyaw explained. "Come on, this is our responsibility."

But there were doubts and anxieties, too, as many voters recalled the election of 1990, when a landslide victory for Mrs Suu Kyi's NLD was brushed aside by military rulers.

Khin May Oo, a 73-year-old doctor who voted in Yangon, said the election may have brought Myanmar to a turning point, but added nervously of the generals who retain significant power: "I'm not sure whether they will accept the election results."

The military's commander-in-chief told reporters yesterday the outcome of the vote would be respected, even if -- as is widely expected -- Mrs Suu Kyi's NLD emerges as the winner.

Indeed, at a military base in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, Captain Wai Yan Aung said when his duty shift ended he would change from his uniform into traditional dress and cast his vote.

"It's a big and exciting day for our country," he said.

A damper to the celebration was the cancellation of voting in areas of the country affected by ethnic violence, which activists estimate has cut some four million people out of the electoral process.

There was also indignation about voter lists riddled with errors.

Linn Htet Aung, 25, who works for an environmental NGO in Yangon, said he was excited about the potential for change in the country but also disappointed because his name was omitted from the voter list in a slum area on the outskirts of the city.

"I am angry," he said. "All my friends are voting today but I can't. I want to choose the government I like but I can't."

Aung Than Htun, an NLD official monitoring a polling station in the slum, said he had discovered dead people on the voting list. But other than that "it seems fine", he said.

Behind him, small white voting slips sat in piles on a table, with rocks and pebbles serving as paperweights.

President Thein Sein, the archrival of Mrs Suu Kyi, voted in Myanmar's grandiose capital, Nay Pyi Taw, built from scratch by the military and symbolic of its half century of iron-fisted rule over the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

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