Myanmar’s diverse ethnic minority parties were counting their losses today after Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party won a landslide victory in historic polls.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has so far scooped 80 per cent of elected seats in polls that promise to dramatically redraw the political landscape in a nation stifled for decades under the grip of army rule. The party sailed past the threshold it needed to secure an absolute parliamentary majority yesterday, giving Suu Kyi and her supporters a massive popular mandate with only a few results still trickling out today. As the results became clear, parties representing Myanmar’s myriad ethnic minority groups emerged as major losers in the vote, taking just ten percent of seats in the combined parliament and losing out to the NLD even in regional legislatures.
“Ethnic parties won very few seats. We did not want to see this but it has happened,” said Aye Maung, chairman of Arakan National Party, who lost his own seat to the NLD in violence-torn western Rakhine state. He voiced concerns over whether “ethnic voices can be heard” now in the new parliament. Suu Kyi, 70, has said her party supports a federal future for Myanmar, where myriad ethnic minority groups have fought decades-long wars for greater political autonomy. But she was also criticised in the run-up to the polls for failing to reach out to smaller minority parties.