(English) Myanmar election: Aung San Suu Kyi wins her seat

Aung San Suu Kyi has won her seat after Myanmar’s historic election, say officials, with her National League for Democracy (NLD) party on course for a landslide victory.

Ms Suu Kyi will return as MP for her Kawhmu constituency in Yangon – though she leads the NLD she is barred by the constitution from being president.

But she has said “that won’t stop me from making all the decisions”.

Sunday’s election was seen as the most democratic in Myanmar for 25 years.

In an interview on Tuesday, her first since the vote, Ms Suu Kyi said the polls were “largely free” though not entirely fair, and that there had been some irregularities.
The election commission is slowly releasing results, with the latest official count giving the NLD a commanding lead over all other parties, most crucially the military-backed Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP).

The USDP, which has been in power in Myanmar since 2011, has taken 10 of the 491 seats being contested in both houses of parliament, compared to 163 by the NLD.

A quarter of the 664 parliamentary seats are set aside for the army. For the NLD to have the winning majority and be able to select the president, it will need at least two-thirds of all seats.

About 30 million people were eligible to vote in Sunday’s election in Myanmar. Turnout was estimated at about 80%.

Hundreds of thousands of people – including the Muslim Rohingya minority, who are not recognised as citizens – were denied voting rights