YANGON: Myanmar kicked off its multi-party general elections on Sunday as over 37 million eligible voters went to the polls across the country.
A total of 42,047 polling stations, which are being operated in consistent with health precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic, opened at 6:00 a.m. local time.
Some 5,639 candidates, including candidates from 87 political parties and 260 independent runners, are competing for 1,117 parliamentary seats in the elections, according to the Union Election Commission.
Of them, 1,565 candidates are contesting seats for the House of Representatives (Lower House), 779 candidates for the House of Nationalities (Upper House), 3,112 for regional or state parliaments and 183 for ethnic minority seats. In the elections, the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party fielded 1,106 candidates, while the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) had 1,089 to run for the parliamentary seats. –Agencies
