YANGON, Myanmar » Myanmar’s main military-backed political party has thanked citizens for voting overwhelmingly in its favor in last month’s elections, the first in two decades.

The Union Solidarity and Development Party, in a half-page advertisement carried Sunday in the state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper, said it had won 882 of a total 1154 seats at stake in the Nov. 7 polls. Official final results have yet to be released.

Opponents as well as outside critics of the junta, such as the U.S. government, said the vote was neither free nor fair, and instead manipulated to ensure that the military’s allies would win.

The advertisement said the party pledged to work hand-in-hand with the people for security, food and shelter needs and human rights and other democratic rights.