Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has predicted that, when all the votes from Sunday's election are counted, her party will have won enough parliamentary seats to form a government.
Ms Suu Kyi said in an interview with the BBC that, with results coming in steadily, her party will probably take around 75 per cent of the seats being contested for the combined houses of parliament.
It needs to win two-thirds of the contested seats to get a majority because the military holds an automatic 25 per cent share and would not support her National League for Democracy.
Ms Suu Kyi is barred from becoming president by a provision of the constitution which was passed during military rule. She noted in the interview that the military had repeatedly said it would honour the election results.
She said "the times are different, the people are different ... very much more alert to what is going on around them".
When her NLD won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election, the army nullified the results and did not hold fresh polls until 2010.
Earlier, Ms Suu Kyi's party accused the government election panel of intentionally delaying results, saying it may be trying "to play a trick".
"The Union Election Commission has been delaying intentionally because maybe they want to play a trick or something," NLD spokesman Win Htien told reporters at Ms Suu Kyi's house after a party meeting.
"It doesn't make sense that they are releasing the results piece by piece. It shouldn't be like that."
He added: "They are trying to be crooked."
The surprising accusation added a worrying twist to what had been an amicable election, with the ruling party appearing to be taking its expected loss gracefully after the Sunday vote.
Ms Suu Kyi did not repeat the claim in the BBC interview, only noting that the military-backed government has promised to respect the will of the people.
She has also said that constitutional rules, which prevent her from becoming president because of her children's nationality, won't stand in her way of ruling Burma.
A party colleague is likely to take the role but with Ms Suu Kyi in the driving seat as far as real power is concerned.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here