Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has taken on the role of “acting president” replacing army-appointed Vice President Myint Swe, who has served in the role since the February 2021 coup.
According to a report yesterday in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing received an official letter from the acting president’s office on Monday. The letter stated that “in order to carry out the affairs” of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), which the president chairs, the “responsibilities of the Pro Tem President would be handed over to the State Administration Council Chairman.” The handover was effected in a “signing occasion” on Monday morning.
Late last week, the state press announced that Myint Swe, 73, was suffering from a neurological disorder and had been placed on leave. He has been receiving medical treatment since early this year and still cannot carry out normal daily activities, including eating food.
Myint Swe, a member of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, was appointed vice president in 2016, under the democratically elected National League for Democracy government. He was then bumped up to acting president by the military government after the coup, when President Win Myint and State Counselor (and de facto leader) Aung San Suu Kyi were arrested.
The transfer of powers to Min Aung Hlaing, who can now add the title of “Pro Tem President” to the roles of prime minister, senior general, head of the military State Administration Council (SAC), and a line of flowery Sanskrit honorifics, comes a week before the expiration of the current period of emergency rule. This was first declared after the 2021 coup and has since been extended five times, most recently in January, a sign that the SAC’s hold on the country has weakened.
The presidency is in large part a figurehead position, but under Myanmar’s military-drafted Constitution, the president chairs the NDSC, which is formally responsible for declaring and renewing states of emergency. The transfer of Myint Swe’s powers to Min Aung Hlaing is thus an attempt to maintain the pretense that the current period of SAC rule is constitutionally valid – though this has been dismissed by scholars.
In any event, the fact that the military has been forced repeatedly to renew the state of emergency – a sixth extension is likely at the end of this month – speaks to the troubles it has faced in suppressing the resistance to its rule enough to move forward with its long-standing plan of holding elections as the first step in a transition back to civilianized military rule.
Over the past nine months, ethnic armed groups and other resistance forces have taken significant territories around Myanmar’s periphery, while leopard spots of resistance continue to advance in the central dry zone, moving ever closer to the major urban centers. The announcement of the presidency came a day after 317 Myanmar army personnel reportedly surrendered to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army close to the city of Lashio in northern Shan State.
The idea that the military junta is in any position to hold elections, either now or in the immediate future, is looking increasingly fantastical as time goes by.