Myanmar’s coup leader elected president by pro-military parliament

Myanmar’s coup leader has won a parliamentary vote to become the ⁠country’s president, formalising his grip on political power in the war-torn nation five years after he ousted an elected government.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing won 429 out of the 584 votes cast by MPs in the country’s pro-military parliament on Friday, Aung Lin Dwe, the speaker of parliament’s combined upper and lower house, confirmed.

The 69-year-old general orchestrated a 2021 coup against the administration of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and placed her under arrest, ⁠prompting widespread protests that morphed into nationwide armed resistance against the military leadership.

The transition from top general to civilian president follows a lopsided election in December and January that was won in a landslide by an army-backed party and derided by critics and Western governments as a sham to perpetuate military rule behind a veneer of democracy.

The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party won more than 80 percent of parliamentary seats contested in the election, while serving members of the armed forces occupy unelected seats, making up a quarter of the total.

In a live broadcast of Friday’s vote, Min Aung Hlaing quickly passed the threshold required to win, as many had predicted. He was ⁠among three ⁠candidates nominated for ⁠the ⁠post earlier this week. The two runners-up became vice presidents.

Min Aung Hlaing’s ascent to the presidency – a position that analysts say he has long sought – followed a major reshuffle in the leadership of Myanmar’s armed forces, which he had led since 2011.

Min Aung Hlaing, who holds the rank of senior general, had earlier relinquished his post of the commander-in-chief because the constitution prohibits the president from simultaneously holding the top military position.

Ye Win Oo, a close aide and former intelligence chief seen as fiercely loyal to the general, took over the powerful job on Monday.

The military handover and Min Aung Hlaing’s rise to the presidency are seen by analysts ⁠as a strategic pivot to consolidate his power as head of a nominally civilian government and earn international legitimacy, while protecting the interests of an armed forces that has run the country directly for five of the past six decades.

Still, the civil war that has racked Myanmar for much of ⁠the last five years is raging, with some anti-military groups – including those comprising remnants ⁠of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and longstanding ethnic minority armies – forming a new combined front this week to take on the military.

“Our vision and strategic objectives are to completely dismantle all forms of dictatorship, including the military dictatorship, and to collectively initiate a new political landscape,” the Steering Council for the Emergence of a ‌Federal Democratic Union said in a statement on Monday.

Resistance groups could face intensified military pressure as well as increased scrutiny from neighbouring countries that may seek to bolster their relationship with Min Aung Hlaing’s new administration, analysts say.