NLD looks set for Myanmar election victory

UNSW Law’s Dr Melissa Crouch says Myanmar’s historic election looks set to deliver victory to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).

Dr Crouch is currently in the Myanmar capital Yangon. She says ethnic–based parties would also likely win votes but warned that any new government could face a legacy of existing polices.

“The current parliament is due to sit again on 16 November until the end of January when the new government will take office,” says Dr Crouch.

“So, a new government may have to contend with whatever policies are introduced between now and February,” she says.

Preliminary results for Myanmar's first openly contested national election for 25 years show the NLD sweeping seats in the country's main cities and several key indicator electorates.

The military-backed Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP) has been in power since 2011.

Dr Crouch is co-editor of Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar (2014, Hart Publishing) and editor of Islam and the State in Myanmar: Muslim-Buddhist Relations and the Politics of Belonging (Oxford University Press 2015).