The National League for Democracy (NLD) has won more than the two-thirds of the seats it needs to take full power of Myanmar’s parliament, according to election officials. Eighty percent of the votes have been counted.
The results should mean the end of several decades of military rule. While Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the party and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, is constitutionally barred from taking the presidency herself, she has said that if her party is elected, she would nevertheless retain control of running the country.
Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest, after the military overturned an election in 1990, in which the NLD won a majority of the vote. The military will still retain 25% of the seats in the parliament, meaning Suu Kyi has formidable opposition.
The military promised a stable transition of power, should the NLD win the vote.