Thet Thet Khine, the chair of the People’s Pioneer Party (PPP), has lost her bid to win a seat in the Pyithu Hluttaw representing Yangon’s Mayangon township by an overwhelming margin.
Final tallies showed that the PPP chair picked up just 7,498 votes in the constituency, less than a tenth of the number won by her National League for Democracy (NLD) rival, Dr. May Win Myint, who finished with 89,548 votes.
The results put Thet Thet Khine third in the race, after Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) candidate Mine Thein Tun, who came away with 9,574 votes. Sein Shwe Phyo of the Union Betterment Party (UBP) came in fourth.
In the 2010 election, which was boycotted by the NLD, the USDP candidate Dr Pwint won in the constituency. In 2015, Dr. May Win Myint won representing the NLD.
Thet Thet Khine won in Yangon’s Dagon township constituency in 2015 as an NLD candidate. She founded the PPP after leaving the NLD last year.
The PPP, which has two former military officials as vice-chairs, has faced criticism for fielding a number of ultranationalists as election candidates.
As the election drew near, Thet Thet Khine said that her party’s run in the 2020 election was intended to “plant a seed” for future elections, after NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi leaves politics.
“The NLD is an individual-based party that relies too much on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now 75. By the 2025 election, she’ll be 80, and by then, the NLD won’t be what it is now. There’ll be a transition period after that,” she said during an interview with an international news agency.
As of late Monday evening, none of the party’s more than 230 candidates had been declared a winner in any constituency.
According to Facebook ad revenue figures, the PPP spent about $6,000 running online campaigns on the social media platform.
