After the massive November election success of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD), the party has elected the nation’s first civilian leaders after more than 50 years of military rule. The president will by Htin Kyaw.
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He secured 360 votes from among 652 ballots cast in the bicameral parliament, where the vote count was read aloud and announced by a parliament official.
Myanmar is undergoing a dramatic transformation from an isolated and repressed pariah state to a rapidly opening aspiring democracy.
Tensions between Suu Kyi and the military have simmered in the run-up to the presidential election and as her party prepares to take power.
The appointed military bloc in Parliament holds 166 seats, 25 percent of the total, while the military-backed USDP has 41 seats in the two Houses. “I hope he can lead this country to peace and stability, equality and implement the rule of law in this country”. She nominated Htin Kyaw, and has vowed to rule from “above” if the latter elected. He runs a charity founded by Suu Kyi and has been a trusted member of her inner circle since the mid-1990s. Under the clause Suu Kyi can not be elected as the president as her two sons are holding British citizenship.
One NLD MP was absent through illness.
“Today’s result is because of the love of people for her. It is the victory of my sister Aung San Suu Kyi”, Htin Kyaw told Reuters after the vote.
Former army General Myint Swe, a hardliner nominated by the military, is to become the vice president while Henry Van Thio, an ethnic leader representing the upper house on behalf of the NLD, may take the role of junior vice president.
Suu Kyi, 70, enjoys unrivalled popularity both as the daughter of the country’s independence hero and as a central figure in the decades-long democracy struggle.
She is barred from top political office because she married and had children with a foreigner.
“He was chosen by Mother Suu”.
“He will be a good president because he has been working with Mother Suu for many years”, said Daw Mya, 60, a vegetable vendor.
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But the new government will still face a heap of challenges, including poverty, civil wars in ethnic minority borderlands and decrepit infrastructure.
