I think it s reasonable to expect the stats to be unstable in the immediate wake of the election The two main forces in play that I would guess at would be the higher proportion of international sources reporting on the country relative to local sources because of an event of international significance and the higher proportion of sources mentioning the country in the course of reporting significant events relative to those mentioning it in the course of promoting a cause or agenda because of an event of relatively higher national significance It is an interesting and perhaps unanswered question what weight is given to different types of source in terms of determining usage Is the choice of name made by people who talk every day in English about Burma more or less important than the choice of name made by sources writing for an audience who may have hardly heard of the country before Perhaps more interesting is that now that Burma is largely out of the international news again the usage has become closer to even but has not swung in the other direction