HTAR LONE, chairman of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in Kayin state, sits despondently behind an empty desk in his eerily silent villa in Hpa-An, the state capital. Just a few days earlier his party, which has, in different guises, brutally run Myanmar for more than 50 years, suffered a resounding defeat. Of the 36 local and national parliamentary seats the USDP contested in Kayin state (formerly called Karen state), it won just six, down from the 17 it currently holds.
The USDP was not the only loser in Kayin state. Ethnic parties, which won 18 seats in local and national parliaments in Myanmar’s 2010 general election, this year got only one local seat. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party (NLD) won 26 of the state’s 33 local and national seats.
That upended pre-election conventional wisdom. Many believed that the NLD would do well, but would struggle to win a majority nationally. Dozens of small ethnic parties were expected to siphon off anti-government votes: many minority voters see the NLD as just another party of elite Burmans, the majority ethnic group that comprise 68% of the country’s...Continue reading
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