Suu Kyi's new govt faces first test

Aung San Suu Kyi's government faced its first test at the ballot box yesterday in by-elections around Myanmar seen as a barometer for growing disillusionment with her party after a year in office.

The euphoria that surrounded the democracy icon's landslide electoral win in 2015 has ebbed as her party struggles to push through promised reforms.

With only 19 contested seats, the by-elections will not alter the balance of power in a government firmly dominated by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).

But the voting offers a chance to gauge the party's popularity after a rocky 12 at the helm.

Discontent is particularly acute in frontier areas where many ethnic minorities see Suu Kyi as working too closely with the military that ran the country for 50 years.

Yet the party remains the first choice for many in Myanmar, with early results showing the NLD poised to win five races in the commercial hub Yangon.

"Based on the information we have, we won five seats in Yangon," the city's chief minister Phyo Min Thein told reporters at the NLD's headquarters. The full results are expected today.

While polling stations around the city lacked the enthusiasm and fanfare of the historic 2015 election, many voters still queued up to mark paper ballots and exercise their political rights.

Most of the races were held for seats vacated by politicians who took up ministerial roles in the new civilian government.

But others lie in remote areas where voting was never held in 2015 because of unrest.