If colours and visuals defined Myanmar's by-elections results, it was chilli red, yellow peacocks and the face of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The landmark event on April 1 saw her and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), win 43 of the 45 seats at stake.
It heralds the return of the Nobel laureate to politics and marks the first time ever that Myanmar opened its doors to other countries to witness their day at the polls.
Closely watched by the international community, the involvement of Ms Suu Kyi and the relatively open and incident-free nature of the polls give growing credence to the Myanmar government’s claim that they are sincere in their pursuit for reformation.
The golden land was painted red in the regions where The Straits Times team visited with the Singapore election observers. NLD supporters took to the streets in the city of Mandalay late at night, blaring horns and music, celebrating even before the results were announced.
There was a sense of optimism in the air as citizens headed to the polls early in the morning, keenly searching for their names on the voters' lists before casting their votes into translucent white plastic boxes.
Nervous anticipation was apparent on the faces of supporters gathered outside polling centres as they craned their necks to see which basket the votes were filling.
Jubilation rang in the streets when the unofficial results were announced, bringing the citizens of Myanmar a step closer to democracy.
Straits Times photojournalist Neo Xiaobin captures scenes from the historic event.
Photography and Audio by: Neo Xiaobin
Produced by: Ted Chen
Music by: Nay Zaw (Wake up Myanmar)
Release date: Apr 7, 2012
Copyright The Straits Times 2012
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လာေရာက္လည္ပတ္ၾကေသာ မိတ္ေဆြတို႕ရဲ႕အျမင္မ်ားလည္း ေရးႏိုင္ပါတယ္