Myanmar | With excitement and hope, millions vote in polls

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, center, leaves after casting her ballot at a polling station in Yangon

With tremendous excitement and hope, millions of citizens voted yesterday in Myanmar’s historic general election that will test whether the military’s long-standing grip on power can be loosened, with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party expected to secure an easy victory.
In a country that was under military rule for almost a half-century, many of the eligible 30 million voters cast ballots for the first time in what was been billed as the nation’s freest election ever. It was the first time even for Suu Kyi, the epitome of the democracy movement who had defied the junta for decades.
Wearing her trademark thazin flowers in her hair, a smiling Suu Kyi arrived at the polling station near her lakeside residence, where she was mobbed by hundreds of journalists. She quickly cast her vote and left without speaking to reporters.
Many people lined up in Buddhist temples, schools and government buildings early in the morning to vote, well before a heavy downpour beat down in Yangon an hour before voting ended peacefully in the late afternoon with no reports of major irregularities or violence.
Vote counting began immediately, and hundreds of supporters gathered under umbrellas at the opposition National League for Democracy party’s office, where unofficial results were to be shown on large TV screens through the night. Official results will be released beginning today.
“I am so excited. I’ve never been this happy in my life,” said Aye Mhu, 49, as she watched a live broadcast of the ballots being counted on the giant screen. “This is the happiest day of my life.”
Election monitors called it “a remarkable day” full of excitement and energy.
Although more than 90 parties are contesting, the main fight is between Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy and the ruling Union Solidarity Development Party, made up largely of former junta members. A host of other parties from ethnic minorities, who form 40 percent of Myanmar’s 52 million people, are also running.
Certainly, though, the election will not bring full democracy to this nation, which spent nearly five decades under brutal military rule and the last five years under a quasi-civilian government. Myanmar’s constitution guarantees 25 percent of seats in parliament to the military, and was rewritten to keep Suu Kyi, the country’s most popular politician, from the presidency.
This time, however, there is hope that the election will move Myanmar a step closer to democracy.
Even if Suu Kyi’s party secures the highest number of seats in the bicameral legislature in Sunday’s vote, it will start with a disadvantage because of the reserved places for the military in the 664-seat parliament.
This means in theory that the USDP, with the military’s support, need not win an outright majority to control the legislature. To counter that scenario, the NLD would require a huge win.
That may not be farfetched, given Suu Kyi’s popularity. Vijay Joshi and Eather Htusan, Yangon, AP