REUTERS

Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military chief who led a coup in 2021, stepped down yesterday to stand as president in a parliamentary vote following the first polls in the Southeast Asian nation since the takeover that triggered a civil war.

The 69-year-old general, who had commanded Myanmar’s armed forces since 2011, was one of two people named as vice-presidential candidates by lawmakers from the country’s newly convened lower house of parliament.

The country’s upper house will also nominate a vice-presidential candidate, with both houses to select a president from the three in a later vote. A date for that vote has not been announced.

“Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is proposed as a vice-presidential candidate,” Kyaw Kyaw Htay, a lawmaker from a military-aligned party, said on the floor of the lower house of parliament, according to a live broadcast of proceedings on state media.

The move follows a controversial election held in December and January, won by military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party but widely derided as a sham by the UN and many Western countries.

Myanmar has been gripped by violence since the 2021 coup in which the military, also known as the Tatmadaw, unseated the democratically elected government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. At a separate ceremony in the capital Naypyitaw, Min Aung Hlaing handed over the position of commander-in-chief of the armed forces to Ye Win Oo, a veteran officer.

“I will continue to serve the interests of the people, the military, and the national interests of the country,” he said in a speech broadcast by military-owned media. Ye Win Oo was appointed Myanmar’s intelligence chief in 2020, and was promoted to commander-in-chief of the army earlier this month. “The fact that he received two major promotions within two months clearly demonstrates that he is one of Min Aung Hlaing’s most trusted loyalists,” said Aung Kyaw Soe, an independent analyst.