NAYPYITAW, Myanmar // The country’s parliament elected Htin Kyaw as Myanmar’s new president yesterday in a watershed moment that ushers the opposition party of Aung San Suu Kyi into government after 54 years of military rule.
The joint session of the two houses of parliament broke into thundering applause as the speaker Mann Win Khaing Than announced the result: “I hereby announce the president of Myanmar is Htin Kyaw, as he won the majority of votes.”
Immediately, the state-run Myanmar TV’s camera zoomed in from above on a beaming Ms Suu Kyi, sitting in the front row, clapping excitedly, for a live nationwide audience.
The 70-year-old Mr Htin Kyaw, a longtime confidant of Ms Suu Kyi, will take office April 1 but questions remain about his position and power.
Rightfully, the job belonged to Ms Suu Kyi, who has been the face of the pro-democracy movement and who endured decades of house arrest and harassment by military rulers without giving up on her non-violent campaign to unseat them. But a constitutional provision barred her from becoming president, and she made it clear that whoever sits in that chair will be her proxy.
Still, Mr Htin Kyaw will be remembered by history as the first civilian president for Myanmar and the head of its first government to be elected in free and fair polls.
After the parliament session ended, Ms Suu Kyi did not comment as she left, leaving the new president to deliver the first reaction.
“This is a victory for the people of this country,” Mr Htin Kyaw said.
He secured 360 votes from among 652 ballots cast in the bicameral parliament.
The military’s nominee, Myint Swe, won 213 votes and will become the first vice president. Mr Htin Kyaw’s running mate from the National League for Democracy party (NLD), Henry Van Tio, won 79 votes and will become second vice president.
The NLD, and indeed Ms Suu Kyi, came into prominence in 1988 when popular protests began against the military that had ruled in different incarnations since taking power in a 1962 coup. After crushing anti-government riots in which thousands of people were killed, the junta placed Ms Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989.
It called elections in 1990, in which the NLD had a landslide victory. But the military ignored the result and held on to power. Ms Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later, and it was about this time that Mr Htin Kyaw – then a computer programmer-turned-bureaucrat – became involved in party work. His father-in-law was already a prominent NLD leader, and his wife a member.
Mr Htin Kyaw, who had known Ms Suu Kyi since primary school, became her adviser on foreign relations. As Myanmar lurched from one political crisis to another, Ms Suu Kyi was released and re-arrested several times. The junta finally started loosening its grip on power in 2010, allowing elections that were won by a military-allied party after the NLD boycotted the polls as unfair.
After more reforms, another general election was held on November 8 that the NLD wond by a landslide, a reflection of Suu Kyi’s widespread public support. The constitutional clause that denied her the presidency excludes anyone from the job who has a foreign spouse or children. Ms Suu Kyi’s two sons are British, as was her late husband. The clause is widely seen as having been written by the military with Ms Suu Kyi in mind.
Myint Swe is seen as a close ally of former junta leader Than Shwe and remains on a United States blacklist that bars American companies from business activities with several tycoons and senior military figures connected with the former junta.
* Associated Press