Unconfirmed reports, however, indicate that Htin Kyaw, a close aide to Aung San Suu Kyi, has put her forward as minister of foreign affairs and possibly as the head of three other ministries-education, electric power and energy, and the President’s Office.
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NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) Myanmar’s president-elect on Tuesday proposed an 18-member Cabinet that will include party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the former dissident who for decades had campaigned for a democratically elected government to replace the country’s military junta.
Oxford-educated Suu Kyi, 70, is the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero and towered over the country’s democracy movement as it waged a spirited and non-violent struggle against nearly half a century of military rule. She was the sole woman and one of only six members of her National League for Democracy party in a Cabinet list read out to lawmakers yesterday.
Suu Kyi has been unable to take the presidential post due to a clause in the constitution – that many suspect was aimed at her – banning anyone with foreign relatives occupying the position.
As Burma continued to wallow under military rule, Ms Suu Kyi was released and re-arrested several times.
Notable, and top on the list, is Suu Kyi, who was not able to become president because of a constitutional block, even though she led her party to a landslide win in general elections last November. The military has reserved 25 per cent of the seats in parliament for itself, guaranteeing that no government can amend the constitution without its approval.
Of greater concern to some observers is the skewed nature of the cabinet, particularly if Suu Kyi takes multiple positions, leaving the remainder to mostly neophyte ministers, the two former ruling party politicians and a few hard-line generals. A senior diplomat added: “If she tries to take all this she won’t do anything well”.
“She wants to do it properly and formally and – this is important to her – legally”, Trevor Wilson, an academic at the Australian National University and former ambassador to Myanmar, told AFP.
She could have done that just by becoming minister in the president’s office, sitting next to her friend and proxy Htin Kyaw and telling him what to do. But some supporters, including a local executive at a manufacturing company in Yangon, said it was “understandable” that Suu Kyi wanted control. Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later.
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Pe Myint, an ethnic Arakan writer who is editor-in-chief of a weekly political affairs journal and vice chairman of the Myanmar Press Council, has been confirmed on the list of nominees as being tapped to serve as information minister.
