Burma Elections

Editor,

ABC 24 News on 2/4/2012 showed two Burmese women interviewed by reporters during the Burma Elections. One was asked if she trusted the ruling military government and she replied in her halting english "They is not [for] freedom. We are always suffering from their control". Another an 85 year old woman who walked with the aid of crutches said she came to vote for Aung San Suu Kyi "because she stood for democracy".

Aung San Suu Kyi the pro-democracy icon and Nobel Peace laucreat got 82% of the vote standing in an area where she did not even live!And her party the National League for Democracy believes it has won 43 of the 44 contested seats. Aung Sang hailed her win as a "victory of the people". The Burma Elections gives a clear indication that if the people have the choice their preference is for civilian democratic rule.

That rule is still a fair distance away in Burma where Aung Sang Suu Kyi's party would have a mere 7% of the 400 seat parliament dominated by the military.

So the Burma Elections is no paradigm shift to democracy although it is a shift from the entrenched rigid military rule that has characterised the country for decades. And ,the Burmese people are overjoyed by this small shift which means for them that their long and difficult struggle for democracy is beginning to show results.

They can now hope for more democratic changes.

Yours sincerely,

Rajend Naidu

Sydney

ENDS

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