Myanmar election: Aung San Suu Kyi's party 'wins 82% of seats in parliament'

Myanmar's opposition party has announced its unofficial victory in the historic election with 82% of seats in both houses of parliament, as international observers declared the voting process fair.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) said its own count of polling stations around the country showed Aung San Suu Kyi's party was on the way to win a landslide victory that would allow it to form the first democratically elected government since the early 1960s.

The NLD also accused the military-backed government of intentionally delaying the release of the results because "maybe they want to play a trick or something". Its spokesman, Win Htein, told reporters at Suu Kyi's house after a party meeting that "it doesn't make sense that they are releasing the results piece by piece. It shouldn't be like that".

In the first post-election interview, the Nobel laureate told the BBC that her party won 75% of contested seats. The constitution reserves 25% of parliamentary seats for the military and was drafted to keep Suu Kyi from the top post. The pro-democracy leader said the polls were not fair but "largely free" and there had been "areas of intimidation".

She said: "The times are different, the people are different. I find the people are far more politicised now than they were back, not just in 1990, but much more politicised than they were in 2012, when we campaigned for the by-election, and very much more alert to what it going on around them."

In 1990, the NLD won a landslide victory but the army nullified the results and did not held fresh polls until 2010. According to the latest results, the NLD has taken 78 out of the 88 declared seats in the lower house, with the USDP winning just five.

Kyi Win, a senior USDP member and retired army officer, reportedly conceded defeat to Suu Kyi's party. "Our USDP lost completely. The NLD has won. This is the fate of our country. Let them [the NLD] work. Aung San Suu Kyi has to take responsibility now... we congratulate them anyway," he told news agency AFP from party headquarters in the capital Naypyidaw.

The results are trickling in as the Carter Center said the voting was generally well conducted. It described the elections in most areas as "competitive and meaningful".

The team of observers, led by the grandson of former US president Jimmy Carter, noted several problems with the electoral process, including barring members of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority from voting. Jason Carter also highlighted "serious flaws in the overall constitutional framework", with reference to the army power to reserve seats in the parliament.

The head of the EU election observer team said the historic Myanmar elections were "better than many expected" but fell short of calling them free and fair. Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told reporters on 10 November that the country had come a long way but "more reforms are needed to ensure truly genuine elections" in the future.