Aung San Suu Kyi wins Myanmar Elections

Myanmar’s election commission said on Friday that the party of the Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had won 348 seats in Parliament, giving her democracy movement a majority and the power to select the country’s next president

• National League for Democracy (NLD) party had won 348 seats across the lower and upper house of parliament, 19 more than the 329 needed for an absolute majority.
• It will be the first time since 1962 that the military establishment does not control the government.
• The military will retain significant power, including direct control over the police and large parts of the bureaucracy. The commander in chief also retains autonomy from the president and Parliament under the Constitution, which was written by a previous military junta. The military has veto power over changes to the Constitution.
• A change in Myanmar's constitution, drafted by the military, prevents anyone with foreign family members from becoming the nation's leader. Suu Kyi's late husband was British. Her children hold British passports.
• The military and the largest parties in the upper house and the lower house will each nominate a candidate for president.
• Myanmar's people voted overwhelmingly to remove the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party from power

Election History of Myanmar :

• 1948 - Burma becomes independent with U Nu as prime minister.
• 1962 - U Nu's faction ousted in military coup led by Gen Ne Win, who abolishes the federal system and inaugurates "the Burmese Way to Socialism" - nationalising the economy, forming a single-party state with the Socialist Programme Party as the sole political party, and banning independent newspapers.
• 1987 - Currency devaluation wipes out many people's savings and triggers anti-government riots.
• 1989 - Slorc declares martial law, arrests thousands of people, including advocates of democracy and human rights, renames Burma 'Myanmar', with the capital, Rangoon, becoming Yangon. NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, is put under house arrest
• 1990 - Opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) wins landslide victory in general election, but the result is ignored by the military
• 2002 May - Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi released after nearly 20 months of house arrest.
• 2010 November - Main military-backed party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), claims resounding victory in first election for 20 years. 
• 2011 March - Thein Sein is sworn in as president of a new, nominally civilian government.

By: Vishal