NLD proposes Suu Kyi’s right hand man as new president of Myanmar

Htin Kyaw, a close aide of the leader of the democracy movement of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, might become the country’s new president after being nominated as a candidate by the Nobel peace laureate’s party.

The new head of state will be chosen from among three candidates, two of whom will be nominated by each house of the parliament, in which Suu Kyi’s party, National League for Democracy, or NLD, has an absolute majority, and a third candidate will be nominated by the army.

Htin Kyaw’s nomination will need to be ratified in the lower house, where it has been proposed, before his candidacy is submitted for a vote in the legislative at a yet to be determined date, according to the Myanmar Times.

The losing candidates will be appointed as vice presidents of the new government that will be led by the new president, relieving the current executive headed by Thein Sein, of duties on March 30.

The second candidate, aspiring to be one of the two vicepresidents, is Sai Nyunt Lwin, general secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy and member of the Shan ethnic minority.

Secrecy continues to shroud the third nominee who will be fielded by the army under a constitutional prerogative that reserves a quarter of the seats in parliament for the military.

The favorite, however, is believed to be retired general Hla Htay Win, who won a seat in the lower house from Naypyidaw district in the capital.

Burma was ruled by military regimes from 1962 to 2011, when the junta transferred power to a civilian government led by Thein Sein, the last prime minister of the dictatorship, and who began implementing political, economic and social reforms to establish a “disciplined democracy.”