Aung San Suu Kyi Wins Myanmar Parliamentary Seat, Party Says

A supporter kisses Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), as she visits polling stations in her constituency during parliamentary elections in Kaw Hmu, Myanmar on April 1. Photographer: Mikhail Galustov/Getty Images

Apr 1, 2012
By Daniel Ten Kate
Bloomberg

Myanmar dissident Aung San Suu Kyi won a parliamentary seat in by-elections today, a member of her party said, in a closely watched poll as the U.S. and European Union consider lifting sanctions if they deem the vote fair.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize during her 15 years under house arrest, was among the winners of 43 of 664 seats in the national legislature up for grabs, San Maung, a data collector for her National League for Democracy party, said by phone from Yangon. Official results have not yet been released.

“It’s more than words, I’m very, very happy,” May Nwe Soe, a 33-year-old garment factory worker, said of voting in Suu Kyi’s district today. “I just want Daw Suu to go to parliament,” she said, using a respectful title for Suu Kyi.

The vote may open the door for the end of sanctions that prevent companies from General Electric Co. (GE) to Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) from investing in the country of 64 million people bordering China and India. President Thein Sein has aimed to modernize Myanmar’s political and economic system since taking power a year ago in moves geared toward ending the country’s international isolation.

Suu Kyi, 66, remains a focal point of global perceptions about Myanmar. She has met a stream of visitors to her lakeside home in recent months, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Known in Myanmar simply as “The Lady,” Suu Kyi emerged on Myanmar’s political scene in 1988, when she returned to the country to care for her ailing mother after years of living overseas. She was first detained before 1990 elections in which her party won about 80 percent of seats for a committee that was designed to draft a new constitution. The military rejected the results.

Fairness Questioned

Suu Kyi refused to accept an army-drafted constitution in 2008 and boycotted an election two years later in which Thein Sein’s party won a majority. A meeting between Suu Kyi and the president in August led to her party rejoining the political system.

In a 90-minute briefing on March 30, Suu Kyi said her party will accept the results if the will of the people is “fairly reflected.” She called irregularities during the campaign including vote-buying, incorrect voter lists and an incident where a candidate was almost hit with a betel nut “beyond what is acceptable for democratic selection.”

“I don’t think we can consider it a genuinely free and fair election if we take into consideration what has been going on in the last couple of months,” Suu Kyi told more than 300 journalists gathered at her lakeside home in Yangon. “But still I will be willing to work toward national reconciliation, so we will try to tolerate what has happened.”

Military, Police Unseen

Suu Kyi has appeared on state-run television and traveled throughout the country during the campaign period, falling ill on two occasions from exhaustion. Tens of thousands of people have greeted her at campaign stops around the country.

“We’re happy with what we’ve seen,” Chheang Vun, who is observing the election for Cambodia, said in Kawhmu district yesterday. “Myanmar is now very different. In the three days we’ve been here, we have not seen military or police.”

Thein Sein called on all political parties to accept the results in a March 24 speech published in the state-run New Light of Myanmar.

“We all need to work together to ensure that the outcome is accepted by all the people,” he said.

Currency Float

Myanmar’s political opening is moving in parallel with efforts to rewrite investment laws and unify multiple exchange rates that impede trade. The country will adopt a managed float of its currency today, scrapping a 35-year fixed rate in a move to modernize the economy, the central bank said in a March 28 statement.

Rich in natural gas, gold and gemstones, Myanmar represents one of Asia’s last untapped frontier markets, attracting investors such as Jim Rogers, the chairman of Rogers Holdings, who predicted a global commodities rally in 1999. Myanmar’s opening is “a game-changer,” Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch said in a March 29 research note.

Honda Motor Co. is interested in building a motorcycle plant in Myanmar, Hiroshi Kobayashi, president and chief executive officer of Asian Honda Motor Co., told reporters in Thailand yesterday. The decision will depend on circumstances in the country and international consensus, he said.

U.S., EU Watching

American sanctions ban investment in Myanmar and imports from the country, restrict money transfers, freeze assets and target jewelry with gemstones originating in the nation. The European Union bans weapons sales and mineral imports.

The by-elections “are a tangible moment in the path to reform, just like the release of political prisoners in January,” Derek Mitchell, U.S. special envoy to Myanmar, told reporters on March 15. “We will respond after the elections in an appropriate fashion if we believe they were held free, fair and transparent.”

Myanmar invited a limited number of election monitors and journalists from the U.S., EU and neighboring countries. Voters will pick from 17 parties and seven independent candidates to fill 37 seats in the lower house, six in the upper house and two for regional assemblies, according to Network Myanmar, a U.K.- based organization that promotes reconciliation in the country.

The by-elections “are a key moment in national reconciliation and should allow a substantial review of EU policy vis-a-vis Myanmar,” Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said in a March 28 statement.

Security Concerns

Elections in three constituencies in Kachin state, home to a violent ethnic rebellion, were suspended due to security concerns. Myanmar’s army has displaced 75,000 ethnic Kachins since last June in an area along the Chinese border, New York- based Human Rights Watch said in a March 20 report, underscoring the challenges that remain for Thein Sein as he aims to make peace with political rivals.

The elections “aren’t going to fundamentally shift power in the country, but they are hugely important in representing a historic compromise” between Suu Kyi’s party and the government, said Thant Myint-U, an author of two books on Myanmar whose grandfather, U Thant, was the first Asian head of the United Nations. “It will end a long chapter in Burmese history.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net