April 3 (Reuters) – Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing won a parliamentary vote on Friday 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.
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, sparking widespread protests that morphed into nationwide armed resistance against the junta.
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.
In a live broadcast of the vote count in a parliament dominated by the election-winning Union Solidarity and Development Party and the military’s quota of appointed armed forces legislators, former commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing comfortably passed the threshold required to win the presidential vote.
‘DREAMS BECOMING REALITY’
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.
On Monday, as he was nominated in parliament as a presidential candidate, Min Aung Hlaing anointed Ye Win Oo, a former intelligence chief seen as fiercely loyal to the general, as his successor to lead the military.
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.
“He has long harboured the ambition to trade his title of commander-in-chief for president and it appears his dreams are now becoming a reality,” said Aung Kyaw Soe, an independent Myanmar analyst.
CIVIL WAR PERSISTS
Still, the civil war that has wrecked Myanmar for much of the last five years is raging, with some anti-junta groups – including those comprising remnants of 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.
“Amidst global oil and fuel shortages and economic crises, maintaining organisational stability could become difficult,” analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said of the opposition.
“As these hardships grow, it may become even harder to build mutual understanding and trust between groups, reach firmer agreements, and sustain cooperation.”
(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Editing by Devjyot Ghoshal and Martin Petty)
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