Suu Kyi hopes victory is dawn of new era

Aung San Suu Kyi claimed victory  in Burma\\\’s historic by-election, saying she hoped it would mark the beginning of a new era for the long-repressed country.

 

Suu Kyi spoke to thousands of cheering supporters who gathered outside her opposition party headquarters a day after her party declared she had won a parliamentary seat in the closely watched vote.

 

"The success we are having is the success of the people," Suu Kyi said, as a sea of supporters chanted her name and thrust their hands into the air to flash "V" for victory signs.

 

"It is not so much our triumph as a triumph of the people who have decided that they have to be involved in the political process in this country," she said. "We hope this will be the beginning of a new era."

 

If confirmed, Suu Kyi will take public office for the first time and lead a small bloc of lawmakers from her opposition National League for Democracy in Burma\\\’s military-dominated Parliament.

 

The victory would mark a major milestone in the Southeast Asian nation, which is emerging from a ruthless era of military rule, and also an astonishing reversal of fortune for a woman who became one of the world\\\’s most prominent prisoners of conscience.

 

Nay Zin Latt, an adviser to President Thein Sein, said he was "not really surprised that the NLD had won a majority of seats" in the by-election. Asked if Suu might be given a Cabinet post, he said: "Everything is possible. She could be given any position of responsibility because of her capacity."

 

Suu Kyi\\\’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party has won 40 of the 45 parliamentary seats so far.  Those included all four seats up for grabs in the capital, Naypyitaw, which is populated by civil servants and would be an embarrassing sign of defeat for the government.

 

The former junta had kept Suu Kyi imprisoned in her lakeside home for the better part of two decades. When she was finally released in late 2010, just after a general election that was deemed by most as neither free nor fair, few could have imagined she would so quickly make the leap from democracy advocate to elected official — opening the way for a potential presidential run in 2015.

 

But Burma has changed dramatically over that time. The junta finally ceded power last year, and although many of its leaders merely swapped their military uniforms for civilian suits, they went on to stun even their staunchest critics by releasing political prisoners, signing cease-fires with rebels, relaxing press censorship and opening a direct dialogue with Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest.

 

Hoping to convince the international community of its progress, Burma invited dozens of Western and Asian election observers to monitor the vote and granted visas to hundreds of foreign journalists.

 

The topdown revolution has left Burma befuddled and wondering how it happened — or at least, why now? One theory says the military-backed regime had long been desperate for legitimacy and a lifting of Western sanctions, and its leadership had quietly recognized that their impoverished country had fallen far behind the rest of skyscraper-rich Asia.

 

By-election was called to fill 45 vacant seats in Burma\\\’s 664-member bicameral assembly, and the military-backed government had little to lose by holding it. 

 

The last vote had already been engineered in their favor — the army was allotted 25% of the seats, and the ruling party won most of the rest.

 

David Scott Mathieson, an expert on Burma for Human Rights Watch, said "the real danger of the by-elections is the overblown expectations many in the West have cast on them."

 

"The hard work really does start afterward," he said. "Constitutional reform, legal reform, tackling systemic corruption, sustainable economic development, continued human rights challenges … will take many years."