Aung San Suu Kyi's win: Is Myanmar embracing democracy?

The famous activist and her party dominate parliamentary elections, signalling a potentially major shift for the notoriously repressive Asian nation

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
(Image credit: REUTERS)

Nobel-winning Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party won big on Sunday, in Myanmar's first real elections since 1990. The NLD says it has won 43 or 44 of the 45 seats up for grabs, with the last seat going to the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) of President Thein Sein and his military-backed government. "We hope that this will be the beginning of a new era," said a jubilant Suu Kyi, who recently spent 15 years under house arrest. Before Suu Kyi can take office, the military government must certify the results. (After the NLD's massive victory in 1990, the military nullified the election.) Can democracy finally take root in the repressive Southeast Asian nation?

It's a mixed bag: Even if the NLD won all 45 of the seats, it wouldn't really "shift the balance of power away from the military-dominated USDP," says Andrew Buncombe in Britain's The Independent. Remember, the USDP still holds the other 664 seats in parliament. But things are certainly looking up. "Freedoms beget further freedoms, participation breeds a sense of entitlement, and a media that is now enjoying unprecedented freedoms feels increasingly emboldened."

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