The Union Solidarity and Development Party appears to have found a stronghold – in one of the most distant corners of the country. Election results in eastern Shan State have been slow to emerge but official figures from local sources show the ruling party ahead in many seats, much to the chagrin of local ethnic candidates.

A clear picture of the outcome is still hard to come by, however, as some parties claim to have received full results while others remain completely in the dark. Only a handful of results, from constituencies with just a few thousand voters, have been confirmed by the Union Election Commission.

In Kengtung, which was officially called last night for the USDP in Pyithu Hluttaw, the Eastern Shan State Development Democratic Party said it held the full results list marked for all of eastern Shan State. Other parties in the same township said they weren’t even aware the count was complete in Kengtung.

U Sai Hong Kham, chair of the Eastern Shan State Development Democratic Party, said most seats in the far east went to the ruling party, bucking the nationwide red trend.

His results list shows that the USDP won six Pyithu Hluttaw seats to the NLD’s three, with one going to an independent, former military officer U Tin Aye, who ran in Metman.

The USDP also won 13 Shan State Hluttaw seats to five for the NLD, with Wa and Lahu parties picking up one each.

The two Amyotha Hluttaw seats were split, with the USDP winning constituency 6 and the NLD winning constituency 7. The USDP was also ahead in the Amyotha Hluttaw in Matman, which shares constituency 12 with Hopang in northern Shan State.

The results were not what U Sai Hong Kham was hoping for, and he dismisses the election as “not fair” because the army had what he described as “special votes”. In several of the state’s constituencies, the results were altered through the arrival of controversial advanced votes. The ballots were challenged in several places, including Lashio, where a high number of advance votes appeared to swing the results in favour of the ruling party candidate, Vice President Sai Mauk Kham, who has now won.

The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy said some of its candidates have refused to sign off on the results in Kengtung. Candidates are required to sign form 19 indicating their acceptance of the results before the ballot count can be reported by the UEC. Signing does not however prevent a candidate from later challenging the results if they believe a violation of the election regulations has occurred.

“Most of my friends didn’t sign, because we waited for three nights and then they announced [the results] only when there were no candidates [at the office],” said a Shan Nationalities League for Democracy member in Kengtung. The commission informed them that even if they did not sign, the results would still be deemed legal.

The SNLD member acknowledged that the counting had been fair, but questioned the process of advance voting. He added that the NLD was trying challenge the election commission in Kentung about the advanced ballots.

In Lashio, the opposition parties had called for the advance ballots to be annulled due to suspicions of forgery after similar handwriting on all the ballots had caught their attention. The outcome of the vote was accepted however, as regardless of the advance votes, the winners were clear, if by a narrow gap.

The NLD members in Kengtung said they were unaware that any official results had been announced by the township election commission. Even five days after the poll, their candidates had not been called to sign for the result, they said.

“Normally they call us in to sign, but they haven’t called us,” said an NLD official. “We are trying to get information from them all the time, but we haven’t heard anything yet.”