Tallying the Triumph: NLD’s Appeal Knows Almost No Bounds

RANGOON — With final results announced late last week, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has won 886 out of 1,150 seats at play in Burma’s Nov. 8 general election, including a commanding 59.3 percent of all seats in the Union Parliament, even when 166 military appointees across both houses are factored in.

The final results announced by the country’s electoral body on Friday gave the NLD a total of 255, or 78.9 percent, of 323 elected seats in the Lower House, where seven seats were not contested due to active conflict or, in the Wa Special Region, a failure to secure cooperation with relevant authorities in the semi-autonomous zone. In the Upper House, the NLD won 135, or 80.4 percent, of 168 elected seats.

The party’s election victory saw it exceed by nearly 10 percentage points the 329-seat majority that is required to choose the country’s next president out of 657 votes in the Union Parliament.

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The NLD also won big in most regional parliaments, taking 75.3 percent of all 659 elected seats, including 21 out of 29 ethnic affairs minister posts, though the party did not secure majorities in the Shan and Arakan state legislatures, losing 70 out of 93 seats it contested in Shan State and 23 out of 32 in Arakan State.

President Thein Sein’s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) fared best in Shan State, winning 33 of 103 seats at play on Nov. 8. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) followed second at 25 seats, and the NLD scored 23 wins. Those totals include one ethnic affairs minister post for the USDP and two for the NLD in diverse Shan State, where all told seven ethnic affairs ministers are allocated seats.

The Arakan National Party (ANP) won the majority of elected seats in Arakan State, and while neither it nor the USDP in Shan State secured an outright majority when military MPs are accounted for, the USDP-military MP bloc will account for a formidable 69-seat plurality in the Shan State legislature.

Less impressive was the USDP’s showing in the Union Parliament, where it secured only 41 seats, totaling 6.2 percent of the national legislature’s 657 seats. Across all regional parliaments, the party bagged 76 seats.

Among a total of 92 parties contesting the election, only 22 parties and five independents enjoyed success at the polls, and some parties including the National Unity Party (NUP), which was originally formed as a ruling junta proxy to contest Burma’s 1990 election, and the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP), an ally of the USDP, claimed a sole victory despite holding several seats in legislatures following the country’s 2010 general election.

What follows is a list of parties that snagged seats on Nov. 8, ranked by number of seats won and broken down by Union Parliament (Upper, Lower houses) and state or divisional legislatures.

This table has been amended to reflect the election commission’s Nov. 24 announcement of a seat reversal in Shan State Upper House seat No. 5, which was originally awarded to the USDP and later changed to the Ta’ang National Party.