Htin Kyaw, her longtime adviser, is frontrunner for role after nominations show constitutional bar on NLD leader becoming president remains in force

Aung San Suu Kyi will not be president of Myanmar, parliament confirms

Myanmar’s new parliament has nominated a senior aide to Aung San Suu Kyi to be its first democratically elected president in half a century.

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Htin Kyaw, a 69-year-old economics graduate, writer and close adviser to the nation’s democracy icon, was formally put forward for the vice-presidential position during a session at the lower house on Thursday morning.

Myanmar’s electoral system requires that the president be voted in from a selection of names put forward by lawmakers. The losing candidates will become vice-presidents.

Henry Van Thio, an ethnic minority Chin candidate, was also nominated by the NLD in parliament’s upper house, and a further candidate will be chosen by the military.



Two candidates have also been nominated by the former ruling Union Solidarity and Development party: Khin Aung Myint and Sai Mauk Kham.

The USDP now has very little representation in parliament so, while one of its candidates will automatically become a vice-president, it is unclear what – if any – position the losing nominee will have.

But it is Htin Kyaw, a senior executive with a charitable foundation named for Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother, who is tipped as the ruling party’s favourite to play “benchwarmer” for their leader.

It is unclear when the final vote will take place but a director from the parliament told Reuters it was planned for Monday.

With a parliamentary majority of 80% secured at the polls in November, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) is comfortably placed to pick a winner.

Henry Van Thio, who looks set to be confirmed as a vice-president, told the Democratic Voice of Burma: “I wasn’t expecting to be nominated for presidency and I am absolutely delighted with the news.

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“As a Chin, this will be the highest post we ever get to serve for the country and I am proud of that. I hope that my ethnic brothers and sisters would be happy for me.”

In a statement published on her party website early on Thursday, Aung San Suu Kyi asked supporters to support the party’s choices “gracefully”, adding: “This is an important step in implementing the desires and expectations of voters who enthusiastically supported the NLD.”

The NLD leader is constitutionally barred from the presidency because her sons are British, but she has vowed to rule from “above” – ideally until she can persuade the military to amend the charter.

While the paranoid junta who ruled for almost 50 years handed over power to a nominally civilian government in 2011, the constitution it penned reserved significant powers for the army.

Talks about altering or suspending the clause that blocks Aung San Suu Kyi have so far been unsuccessful.

The politician’s intention to rule by proxy has a precedent in Sonia Gandhi, India’s Congress party leader, who controlled prime minister Mahmohan Singh’s government before losing power in 2014.