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For a Triumphant Aung San Suu Kyi, the Hard Work Is Just Beginning

Any party that just won 80 percent of the vote would be over the moon. In Myanmar, the joy comes with awareness that the transition to full democracy will be tough.
Photo by Lynn Bo Bo/EPA

The Aung San Suu Kyi landslide in Myanmar is even bigger than forecast. As more results come in following historic general elections last Sunday, her National League for Democracy Party (NLD) has 80.5 percent of elected parliament seats, just two seats shy of the 329 needed to form a majority government, and is likely to get them since only 82 percent of the vote has been counted.

At the state and regional levels, the party led by the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner fared almost as well, winning more than 77 percent of seats announced thus far. But the challenges ahead for a triumphant NLD will be tough. The party will now have to adjust quickly and carefully from its long-held opposition to government – a position in which it will still have to deal with a military faction keen to protect its privilege after decades of ruling through a junta.

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The incumbent Union Solidarity and Development Party, the military's political proxy, is facing humiliating losses nationwide, mostly to NLD candidates. From commanding three quarters of the elected seats in the current parliament, it has just 10 percent now. The rout is so bad that, in one particularly surreal case, an NLD regional parliament candidate managed to defeat his USDP counterpart despite the severe disadvantage of having died two days before the vote.

But the country's first openly contested nationwide poll in 25 years has been anything but a dead-man-winning sham. In fact, the world is congratulating Myanmar for pulling off a remarkably free and fair election, compared to Myanmar's past.

"This was a hell of a step forward for the democratic process"

The European Union's chief observer in the country, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, told reporters in Yangon that "the process went better than many of us expected beforehand." Daniel Russel, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, was blunter: "This was a hell of a step forward for the democratic process," he told reporters.

But, he added, "now comes the hard part."

For the NLD members involved in negotiation talks with outgoing parliamentarians and the military, the euphoria of election success is quickly fading as the problems of a budding democracy take center stage, particularly over nominations for the next president.

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"We can't shout "Yeah, we win!" because then the loser may get angry and the situation could become a lot harder for us," Kyi Pyar, 36, an NLD candidate who just won election to the regional parliament, said in her office in downtown Yangon. "I knew during the campaigning that we would win in this constituency. I'm now focused on what is next," she said.

After decades in opposition, there are worries within the party that the public's high expectations for an NLD government may lead to impatience when it comes to the capacity for quick and real change.

"I have heard some people say 'OK, Daw Suu [Kyi] won. I will give [the NLD] one year to see what she can do.' But our country has been destroyed over the past 50 years!" Kyi Pyar said.

Related: How Myanmar's Landmark Election Could Influence One of Its Most Lucrative, and Shady, Industries

The military that's been in charge until now still has 25 percent of seats in parliament, an unelected quota mandated by the 2008 constitution drafted under the junta's regime, and Kyi Pyar fears it may use that influence to "disrupt" the work of the incoming government.

"I think this collision of interests is going to shape the landscape after the election. And through that, the next five years," David Mathieson, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Myanmar, said.

"We have to build bridges between the civilian [representatives] and the military," Kyi Pyar said.

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Aung San Suu Kyi's first political move after the election has been a conciliatory one. On Wednesday, she published a call for "national reconciliation" talks with Myanmar's army chief, the president and the parliamentary speaker.

"For the sake of the country's dignity and the well-being of the people, it is paramount that their will, expressed through the November 8 general elections, be fulfilled in a stable, peaceful and correct way. With regards to this, I would like to request a meeting next week that is aimed at national reconciliation," she wrote on the NLD's Facebook page.

Watch the VICE News documentary An Uncertain Future for Myanmar's Refugees:

Shwe Mann, the parliamentary speaker and another high-profile loser in the elections, quickly responded on his Facebook page, saying he'd help facilitate that meeting. Later that day, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing's Office released a statement congratulating Suu Kyi's success in the polls and agreeing to "do what is best in cooperation with the new government during the post-election period."

The Obama administration, which holds Myanmar's opening up to democracy as a major diplomatic coup, wants a peaceful transfer of power. It hopes to have strong ties in the future with this resource-rich country of 53 million, with a booming economy and a growing appetite for imported goods.

In a statement after the election, US Secretary of State John Kerry stressed that a "credible" transition was now needed, hinting to reform of the 2008 constitution and the ongoing human rights violations, particularly towards the Rohingya Muslim minority by extremist Buddhist factions.

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For newly-minted democratic lawmakers like Kyi Pyar, the next few months will be vital in picking the next president and cabinet, even though the next government will take office only in April next year.

"We have a lot of priorities," she said. "This [next] government will have a lot of burdens and many are linked together. National reconciliation is important, but so is the next president, so is economic development, so is educational reform, so is reaching peace" in the country's ongoing civil war.

Related: Hundreds of Thousands of Citizens Won't Be Allowed to Vote in Myanmar's Historic Election

With so many tricky issues, and despite her awareness of the delicate task of implementing reform while resolving civil-military mistrust, Suu Kyi has remained unequivocal when it comes to the topic of leadership and the next president: She may not reign, but she will rule. Barred from the presidency by the 2008 constitution, she has said before the election that she would be "above the president" in the new Myanmar.

Such rhetoric may prove inflammatory to the military, but Suu Kyi remains the symbol of the struggle against the dictatorship, and the international face of Myanmar, despite recent controversy over her refusal to get involved in the plight of the persecuted Rohingya Muslims. Whatever her role in the country's new democracy will be, there's no denying that her party's stunning victory and the smooth running of the election have been a resounding success for the 70-year old Suu Kyi.

Leafing through a number of newspapers littering her office desk, Kyi Piar let herself smile as she held one with Aung San Suu Kyi's face on the front page. "Maybe", she said, "I'm just a pessimist."

Follow Adam Ramsey on Twitter: @aporamsey