Myanmar authorities are due to release early election results on Monday after what appeared to be an enthusiastic turnout despite fears of the novel coronavirus for a vote that is expected to give leader Aung San Suu Kyi a new term.

The Election Commission is expected to announce early official results later on Monday.

In a running tally on its official Facebook page, the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD ) said it had won 15 of the 315 seats being contested in the 425-member lower house.

"We believe that we will win, to the extent we can form a government," said NLD spokesman Myo Nyun, adding that the election had been peaceful and smooth.

Representatives are also being elected to the upper house with 161 seats up for grabs in the 217-seat chamber.

The military, which ruled Myanmar for nearly 50 years until it began withdrawing from civilian politics in 2011, controls a quarter of seats in both houses of parliament, under a constitution it drew up and which Suu Kyi and her allies want to amend.

The NLD needs 322 seats in total to form a government and is expected to win again but with a smaller margin as new parties emerge and ethnic minority parties gain support in some regions.

In contrast to the wave of optimism that greeted the NLD's landslide win in 2015, Myanmar went into this election facing a surging COVID-19 outbreak and economic hardship.

Although Myanmar is seeing an average of 1,100 new coronavirus cases a day - compared with a handful in early August - fears of the virus appeared not to dampen Sunday's turnout among the 37 million registered voters.

The Election Commission has yet to release data on turnout but in the biggest city, Yangon, long lines of voters wearing face masks and shields formed from dawn.

(With input from Reuters)