USDP concedes defeat to Suu Kyi`s opposition

Myanmar`s ruling party conceded defeat in the country`s general election on Monday as the opposition led by democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi appeared on course for a landslide victory.

"We lost," Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) acting chairman Htay Oo told Reuters in an interview a day after the Southeast Asian country`s first free nationwide election in quarter of a century.

The election commission has not yet announced any results from Sunday`s poll, but Suu Kyi`s National League of Democracy (NLD) said that partial counts showed it had won more than 80 percent of votes cast in the densely populated central regions.

NLD spokesman Win Htein said that outside the central area, the Nobel peace laureate`s party had so far won more than 65 percent of votes cast in the states of Mon and Kayin. Results from the five other states were not yet known, he added.

It was not yet clear whether the NLD would win the two-thirds of seats in parliament it needs to form the first democratically elected Myanmar government since the early 1960s. But, with a first-past-the-post system for winning constituencies, a commanding lead in the popular vote makes it likely.

The election was a landmark in the country`s unsteady journey to democracy from the military dictatorship that made it a pariah state for so long. It is also a moment that Suu Kyi will relish after spending years under house arrest. -Reuters