Lining up for hours on dusty city streets and country dirt lanes, voters in Myanmar turned out en masse on Sunday in elections that were expected to leave the governing party of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as the biggest force in the country’s Parliament. The strong turnout, in only the second truly contested elections the country has held in decades, underscored the voters’ commitment to Myanmar’s nascent democracy, which remains in the shadow of a military dictatorship that ruled for 50 years. Halfway across the world from where Americans were assessing the state of their own democracy, the elections in Myanmar served as a crucial referendum on a political transition that is neither orderly nor ordained. “I had to vote today because my vote will count for our country’s future,” said U Sithu Aung, a physiotherapist who waited for two hours in the sun to cast his ballot in the city of Mandalay. “I know there is a risk of Covid but voting is more important than getting infected with a virus.”

Source: International New York Times November 09, 2020 00:56 UTC