ICC NOTE: Burma’s military led party has nominated a former Lt. General Myint Swe as their party’s choice for president. Under Burmese law, each party nominates a president and vice president to be voted by the general parliament. The individual with the most votes becomes the president while the remaining candidates compete for the vice presidency. The military’s decision to nominate the 64 year old chief minister of the Yangon region is a visible sign of their desire to stop any sort of reforms Aung San Suu Kyi wishes to enact. He is a hardliner known for his crackdown on democratic protests led by monks in 2007. He represents the old guard, that of the military who wishes to clamp down on ethnic dissidents and their fight for greater autonomy. It also means if he were to be elected president (the military holds an automatic 25% of parliament) it would spell more persecution of ethnic Christian minorities in the region. 

3/14/2016 Myanmar (Radio Free Asia) – Myanmar’s military on Friday nominated the chief minister of Yangon region as its candidate in the upcoming parliamentary vote to determine the country’s top leaders, which could pose a threat to Aung San Suu Kyi’s reform plans for the developing democracy.

Military deputies nominated retired Lieutenant General Myint Swe, the 64-year-old chief minister of Yangon region, who ordered a crackdown on anti-government protests led by monks in 2007, when a military junta ruled the country.

He is currently on the U.S. government’s list of sanctioned individuals for his actions under the military government, which was in power for a half-century until 2011.

“I think they nominated Myint Swe because he has administrative experience as the chief minister of Yangon region for the last five years,” political commentator Yan Myo Thein told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “Also, they might think he can work competitively with the president and other vice president over the coming five years.”

The nomination of Myint Swe is a big challenge for the National League for Democracy (NLD), which swept general elections last November, because he will advocate for and protect the interests of the armed forces, he said.

“The NLD government needs to think about this and prepare,” he said.

NLD chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi has made reform and national reconciliation between Myanmar’s armed ethnic groups and the national military priorities under the new government led by her party.

Zagana, a popular comedian and former political prisoner, said the military nominated Myint Swe because it believes he will form a good relationship between the armed forces and the civilian sector, particularly with businesspeople.

“Because Myint Swe controls the 30,000-acre Yangon New City Project, he can protect the interests of businessmen involved in the project better than any other military leader can,” he said.

The controversial expansion project to build seven satellite towns on the outskirts of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon has undergone several delays and met with opposition after officials cancelled an initial multibillion-dollar contract awarded to Chinese investors in 2014 to develop tens of thousands of acres south of the city.

The incoming NLD-led government will likely decide whether or not to push ahead with the project.

“He knows many top military leaders’ business interests, including those of former Senior General Than Shwe and others, and has a huge connection to businessmen,” Zagana said, referring to the military strongman who was chairman of Myanmar’s State Peace and Development Council from 1992 to 2011.

The military has interests in several businesses throughout the country ranging from property to mining sites through two large holding companies it controls.

Not reform-minded

But not everyone believes Myint Swe will be good for business in the commercial capital Yangon or for the country as a vice president.

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