Myanmar wakes up to uncertainty, ballot counting

comments     Kyaw Lynn, Cod Satrusayang, dpa     Published     Updated

Myanmar woke up today, a day after historic elections, to uncertainty and more ballot counting.

The Union Election Commission stated overnight that voter turnout was 80 percent. The results would be counted and released as they came in for each township, it said.

The first were expected at 3pm today, the commission said in Yangon, with the final result expected to take at least a week, according to observers on the ground.

The opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, declared victory in several constituencies late Sunday but the results were unconfirmed.

The US praised the "peaceful and historic" elections, but called on the country for transparent results.

The polls are "an important step forward," Secretary of State John Kerry said, but he noted "impediments to the realization of full democratic and civilian government."

These include the ongoing disenfranchisement of minority Rohingya Muslims, and the reservation of unelected seats for the military, he said.

NLD spokesman Win Htein said early Monday that the party is expecting to win at least 80 per cent of the contested seats.

Sunday's polls were the first openly contested elections in 25 years.

The NLD boycotted the previous elections in 2010 over a clause in the constitution that bars Suu Kyi from becoming president, as her sons are British.

In the vote before that, in 1990, the NLD won a solid majority, but the result was ignored by the military government, in power one way or another since 1962.

The ruling army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party have so far made no post election statement.

Meanwhile, a senior member of Myanmar's ruling party concedes defeat in his constituency.

"I congratulate Thein Nyunt of the National League for Democracy on his win," Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann, of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, posted on Facebook.

Shwe Mann, speaker of the lower house since 2011, was running in the township of Phyu, around 200 kilometres north of Yangon.

- dpa



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