MANDALAY — The National League for Democracy is claiming a resounding victory in Mandalay Region, where it expects to win in 20 of the 28 Lower House constituencies but appears to have lost the seat of Meikthila.
Dr Zaw Myint Maung, a member of the party’s central executive committee, said it had won 11 of 14 constituencies counted by early Monday afternoon.
Results in the region’s remaining 14 constituencies were expected on Monday evening, he said.
“We expect to win 20 constituencies in the region,” said Dr Zaw Myint Maung, who is seeking election to the regional assembly constituency of Amarapura.
The party has claimed the upper and lower house and regional assembly seats in Mandalay city’s Chanayethazan township, as well as Nyaung U, Pyin Oo Lwin and Amarapura.
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Meikthila, which the NLD won in the 2012 by-elections but seems to have lost to the Union Solidarity and Development Party, was the scene of communal violence in March 2013 that left at least 40 people dead and thousands displaced by arson attacks on their homes.
The seat was won for the NLD in 2012 by U Win Htein, a native of the town, who said after the violence that what he had seen had made him “ashamed to be from Meikthila”.
The comment angered members of the Buddhist community, who tried unsuccessfully to have him removed from parliament.
In an interview with Frontier in September, U Win Htein said he stood by his comment, adding that he had seen people killed in front of him and it had made him very angry.
