Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) scored a landslide victory in Myanmar's Nov. 8 general elections, which national and international electoral observers said were held peacefully and relatively in a free manner. According to Myanmar's Union Election Commission, the NLD has secured a clear majority in the 664-seat parliament, where 25 percent of the seats are reserved for the military per the constitution that was adopted in 2008.
The NLD's triumph was significant in that the people of Myanmar had spoken freely for the first time in 25 years. In the 1990 elections — the last elections considered to have been free and fair — the NLD won a decisive victory by capturing some 80 percent of the seats contested. However, the ruling military junta, which had ruled the country in isolation from the rest of the world since 1962, nullified the results and stayed in power.
This time more than 6,000 candidates from some 90 political parties took part in the elections, though the main election campaign was fought between the NLD and the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), led by Thein Sein. Thein Sein, a former general, became president after the 2010 general elections, which the military government had organized in accordance with its own seven-step roadmap for the transition to democracy.