Update: Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD seals historic election win in Myanmar

Published Fri, Nov 13, 2015 · 05:47 AM

[YANGON] Myanmar's longtime opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi led her party to an historic victory in national elections, routing the military-linked government in a vote that will further loosen the army's grip on the Southeast Asian nation.

The National League for Democracy secured 332 seats in the two houses of parliament, enough to choose the country's next president without seeking support from any other political party, according to official results from the nation's election commission.

Ms Suu Kyi, 70, and her party are the longtime foils to the generals who ruled Myanmar from a coup in 1962 until 2011, when they handed power to their political arm after a 2010 vote that was tainted by allegations of fraud and boycotted by the opposition. The Nov. 8 ballot was the most widely contested poll since 1990, when a first NLD landslide was ignored by the generals, plunging the country into another generation of repression and isolation. Ms Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time and had to accept the Nobel Peace Prize the following year in absentia.

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