YANGON, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's Union Election Commission (UEC) and political parties held discussions on the application of the proportional representation (PR) system in the next general elections, state media reported on Friday.

Representatives from 53 out of some 90 political parties in total and 20 civilian representatives took part in the discussions expected to last three days.

Myanmar has been practicing the First Past the Post (FPTP) system which lets the winning lawmaker from a constituency in the elections take a seat to represent the region in parliament.

The proposal to replace the FPTP system with the PR system, which gives parliament seats to parties based on the percentage of votes they win in the elections, was rejected in 2014.

UEC head U Thein Soe said Friday that the practice of PR system could bring opportunities to minority parties, ethnic parties, women and individual representatives.

The election commission in July this year cancelled the results of the previous multiparty general elections held in November last year, after the military alleged that there was voting fraud and demanded investigation.

The National League for Democracy won a majority of seats in both houses of the Union Parliament in last year's elections.

A state of emergency was declared in Myanmar on Feb. 1 this year and the state power was transferred to Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing. The UEC was reformed to take steps to review the process of elections in early February. Enditem

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