Suu Kyi eyes historic win as polls campaign ends

Myanmar's boisterous election campaign drew to a close yesterday, two days before milestone polls that could finally propel Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party to power after a decades-long struggle against the military.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) is eyeing an outright majority at Sunday's general election, the first the party has contested since 1990.

Myanmar was ruled for half a century by a brutal and isolationist junta which crushed pro-democracy movements through a combination of violent crackdowns and political chicanery.

But in 2011 the military unexpectedly ceded power to a quasi-civilian government led by former top-ranking general President Thein Sein. The wave of reforms that followed loosened the military chokehold on the nation.

A free press has flourished since, most political prisoners have been released and the economy is creeping back to life in lockstep with the rollback of most international sanctions.

But the ruling, army-backed Union and Solidarity Development Party (USDP) is the main obstacle to a historic NLD win.

Meanwhile, Myanmar defended its human rights record yesterday, two days before a landmark election, as Western powers including the United States and Britain voiced serious concern over persisting violations.

"Myanmar is changing for the better in all sectors and with full transparency," legal advisor to the presidency, Sit Aye, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva, as a delegation from the country insisted they had addressed the international community's major concerns.

The country yesterday was undergoing a so-called Universal Periodic Review of its rights record before the UN's top rights body -- which all 193 UN countries must submit to every four years.