World

Myanmar president claims election credit

November 16, 2015 4:31 pm

Aung San Suu Kyi’s party’s landslide win in Myanmar’s historic election is the result of the government’s reforms, president Thein Sein says.

The former junta general, who shed his uniform to lead the country’s quasi-civilian regime five years ago, said the 8 November polls were testament to the political and economic changes that have swept the former pariah state since the end of junta rule.

“The election is the result of our reform process and, as we promised, we were able to hold it very successfully,” he told a meeting of political parties in Yangon in his first public appearance since the polls.

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“We will hand this process (of reform) on to a new government,” he said, adding “don’t worry about the transition” in comments aimed at calming nerves in the country’s first attempt at a democratic-style transition for decades.