\n Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing was months from mandatory retirement as a general when he mounted a coup, deposed the democratic government and replaced it with a military junta headed by himself.\n<\/p>\n
\n After more than 50 years in the military, 15 of them as commander-in-chief, he was elected to the civilian role of president on Friday.\n<\/p>\n
\n The bespectacled officer became the armed forces head in 2011, just as Myanmar broke with its history of iron-fisted martial rule and began an experiment with democracy.\n<\/p>\n
\n He spent a decade jostling with civilian leaders before mounting his coup five years ago, jailing Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering a vicious civil war that is still being fought.\n<\/p>\n
\n Most recently, his official title in state media has been \"State Security and Peace Commission Chairman Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Senior General Thadoe Maha Thray Sithu Thadoe Thiri Thudhamma Min Aung Hlaing\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Friday's presidential election was the culmination of a series of coordinated moves following a landslide win for pro-military parties in a heavily restricted poll overseen by the junta.\n<\/p>\n
\n First he was replaced as the military's commander-in-chief, then nominated in the lower house as a vice-president before the whole parliament -- packed with serving military officers and political allies of the armed forces -- elected him president by a crushing majority.\n<\/p>\n
\n The junta -- officially called the \"State Security and Peace Commission\" -- ceases to exist with his installation as president, cloaking his continued rule in civilian garb.\n<\/p>\n
\n A former spymaster dubbed his \"eyes and ears\" replaced him as military chief, ensuring a loyal ally at the head of the armed forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n The developments came after Min Aung Hlaing presided over the country's annual Armed Forces Day parade last week, festooned with his many military and civilian awards.\n<\/p>\n
\n Tanks, multiple rocket launchers and even mini-submarines on lorries trundled through the streets as the military put on its biggest show of force in years.\n<\/p>\n
\n The incoming government had been \"legitimately elected by the people\", he said, and the military would support it \"with the aim of strengthening and sustaining the multi-party democracy system\".\n<\/p>\n
\n But the vote was widely condemned and criticised as illegal.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to the Asian Network for Free Elections, parties that won 90 percent of seats at the last polls in 2020 -- including Suu Kyi's hugely popular National League for Democracy -- were unable to take part after having been dissolved.\n<\/p>\n
\n -- Law student --\n<\/p>\n
\n Min Aung Hlaing is a member of the Dawei ethnic group, which is often seen as part of Myanmar's Burmese majority but has a distinct cultural identity.\n<\/p>\n
\n He spent his early childhood in central Myanmar, where his father was head of the arts department at a teacher training college, he told an interviewer in 2020.\n<\/p>\n
\n He studied law at university before joining the military in 1974 and enrolling in officer academy, reportedly on his third attempt.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rising through the ranks, he burnished his credentials by leading a campaign against an ethnic rebel insurrection around crucial trade crossings with China.\n<\/p>\n
\n His predecessor, Than Shwe, ruled Myanmar for nearly two decades, but it was Min Aung Hlaing's rare fate to be a top general under civilian command, albeit with the military still playing a key role in politics.\n<\/p>\n
\n Even before the 2021 coup, Min Aung Hlaing was persona non grata in many countries for commanding a 2017 military crackdown on the Rohingya ethnic minority that drove about 750,000 people into Bangladesh.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was banned from Facebook for stoking hate speech, heavily sanctioned and the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor is seeking his arrest for crimes against humanity.\n<\/p>\n
\n He steadfastly denies allegations of human rights abuses.\n<\/p>\n
\n There is no official death toll for Myanmar's civil war, and estimates vary widely.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to non-profit organisation Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), which tallies media reports of violence, as many as 90,000 have been killed on all sides since the coup.\n<\/p>\n
\n That number almost certainly includes conscripts the military forcibly recruited to bolster its ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing was months from mandatory retirement as a general when he mounted a coup, deposed the democratic government and replaced it with a military junta headed by himself. After more than 50 years in the military, 15 of them as commander-in-chief, he was elected to the civilian role of president on Friday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-157392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n