Myanmar polls on Nov 8 to be litmus test for Suu kyi

Yangon, July 3: As the Myanmar Electoral Commission announced the program to hold countrywide elections on November 8 this year, all eyes are on the incumbent leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party League of Democracy with doubts being raised about its repeating the performance this time.

According to the agency reports the Electoral Commission has announced its decision to conduct the elections on November 8. The vote is considered as a test for Myanmar’s full democratic transition after decades of military rule.

There are 330 seats in the lower house and 168 in the upper house of the national parliament for which the polling will be held. 25 percent seats are reserved for the military while another 664 seats plus 29 for ethnic minorities will be at stake in the state assemblies.

Political observers are predicting another term for Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy but are not sure about the landslide victory as it earned in 2015. Suu Kyi’s party had won hands down with the elections that were held in 2015 after a gap of 50 years when the country was under the military rule.

The state of economy and handling of the Rohingya Muslim issue are the two factors that may dent into the popularity of the incumbent leader and likely to reduce her vote share. Moreover, ethnic minorities are also not so happy with her style of functioning.