NAYPYITAW , April 4 – Myanmar’s parliament on Friday elected junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing president of a new military-backed administration, confirming the widely anticipated scenario that the former military chief would continue to rule the country.
The voting followed a parliamentary procedure seen as the final step in the country’s transition from junta rule to a quasi-civilian government, with Min Aung Hlaing consolidating power seized in a 2021 military coup that toppled the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Min Aung Hlaing, 69, who stepped down as commander-in-chief on Monday, won 429 votes in the 586-member parliament, including unelected military representatives, during a joint session of the bicameral legislature in the capital Naypyitaw.
Under Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 Constitution, serving civil servants, including the commander-in-chief, cannot become president.
Nyo Saw, Min Aung Hlaing’s close aide and a former army general who served as prime minister of the junta, won the second most votes and was elected one of the two vice presidents Friday. He ran in a general election held in December and January from the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, winning a seat in the lower house.
Nan Ni Ni Aye, a relatively unknown Kayin State assembly member, received the third-highest number of votes among presidential nominees chosen by parliament members and became the second vice president.
USDP lawmakers and military representatives hold a supermajority in parliament, accounting for about 86 percent of the seats, following a junta-arranged general election widely criticized as a sham by opposition forces and the West amid an ongoing civil war.
Suu Kyi and other officials of her government, ousted by the military, have remained in detention since the coup. Her National League for Democracy party was dissolved by the junta two years after the coup.
Min Aung Hlaing on Monday handed over the armed forces commander post to Gen. Ye Win Oo, a former military intelligence chief and one of the senior officers who organized the arrest of Suu Kyi and other officials of her government during the Feb. 1, 2021, coup.
The new president of Myanmar is expected to form his Cabinet early next week and seek parliamentary approval to formally assume state authority by April 10, according to lawmakers.
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara refrained from commenting on the election outcome or how to treat Min Aung Hlaing’s government diplomatically, but said Japan will closely watch developments in Myanmar while continuing humanitarian assistance “in a manner that directly benefits” its people.
“An end to the violence, political progress including the release of detainees and sincere dialogue among parties concerned and efforts to enhance people’s lives are essential to improve Myanmar’s situation,” the top government spokesman said at a regular press conference.
Myanmar has been ruled largely by the military since 1962, although Suu Kyi’s civilian administration was in power from 2016 until the 2021 coup.
