Naypyidaw : Aung San Suu Kyi’s party today nominated her former driver and close aide to be Myanmar’s next president, as the Nobel laureate looks to rule her former junta-run homeland through a trusted proxy.
Suu Kyi has vowed to rule “above” the president, despite being barred from top office by the army-scripted constitution, as she strives to fulfil the huge mandate delivered by millions of voters in her National League for Democracy’s landslide election victory in November. The selection of Htin Kyaw, a genial 69-year-old who went to school with Suu Kyi and now helps run her charitable foundation, comes after months of fevered speculation.
Even her own MPs were kept in the dark about the deliberations, with the party fearful of upsetting a delicate political transition in a nation where the military still casts a long shadow. “This is an important step in implementing the desires and expectations of voters who enthusiastically supported the NLD,” Suu Kyi said in a statement published on her party website early Thursday, urging people to support the party’s goal “peacefully”. Many in Myanmar have clung to faint hopes that the 70-year-old democracy campaigner could still be named president, but months of talks with the powerful military have failed to remove the legal obstacles in her way.
She is barred by a charter clause that disqualifies anyone with close foreign relatives. Her late husband and two sons are British.
“I would like to propose U Htin Kyaw, from the NLD,” said Khin San Hlaing, a lower house MP for Suu Kyi’s NLD, which will also nominate another candidate from the upper house.
Though Htin Kyaw is almost certain to clinch the nomination with backing from the NLD-dominated parliament, his official confirmation may take days.
Two other candidates will be put forth — one from the upper house and the other from the military, which still controls a quarter of the legislature. A final vote of the combined houses will then determine which will become the president, leaving the other two as vice presidents.
Htin Kyaw is considered as a smart choice by Suu Kyi and her party. The affable economics graduate, who acted as a driver for Suu Kyi in brief spells of freedom from her long years of house arrest, has the democracy movement in the family.
He is married to sitting NLD MP Su Su Lwin, whose late father was the NLD’s respected spokesman.
Neither he or his wife attended the parliament. Myanmar historian and political analyst Thant Myint-U said Htin Kyaw was a “stellar choice” who had “unimpeachable integrity” in a tweet soon after the announcement.
