Sources close to the regime in Naypyidaw told DVB that recently retired soldiers will dominate key positions in the next Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) led “government” that will be formed in April following the end of the military-run elections on Jan. 25.
“The president, and the ministers for foreign affairs, and planning and finance will be ex-soldiers,” a source told DVB on the condition of anonymity.
The source in the regime told DVB that Min Aung Hlaing and Khin Yi, the chairperson of the military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), met to discuss the incoming USDP administration in the capital Naypyidaw on Feb. 10.
The source added that the USDP and an unnamed ethnic nationality political party will appoint the two Vice-Presidents. The Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw, or lower house of parliament, will be a USDP lawmaker. The military will appoint a retired soldier as the Speaker of the Amyotha Hluttaw, or upper house.
DVB is unable to verify this claim independently. Regime spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told pro-military media on Jan. 26 that over 13 million out of more than 24 million eligible voters, or about 55 per cent, cast their ballots in the military elections.
A political analyst told DVB on the condition of anonymity that Min Aung Hlaing will lead the pro-military USDP government in some capacity, either as president or as head of a “Union Consultative Council,” which was signed into law by the regime-controlled National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) on Feb. 3.
This allows the next president to form and appoint at least five members, including a chairperson and a secretary, to serve as advisors to the executive branch of government in Naypyidaw.
The USDP won 108 seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw and 231 seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw during the elections, according to the regime’s Union Election Commission (UEC). Polls were held in three phases in 263 of Myanmar’s 330 townships.
Under the 2008 Constitution, the military is allotted 25 per cent, or 166, of all seats in both levels of parliament. Any political party that controls 294 of 586 seats in the legislature can appoint the president, according to the constitution. The combined total of USDP seats and appointed military lawmakers is 505, which far surpasses the required 294.
Htin Kyaw Aye, an independent election analyst, said that the election outcome was predetermined by Min Aung Hlaing in a bid to hold on to power in Myanmar five years after he led a military coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party administration, which led the country from 2016-21.
The NLD defeated the USDP in back-to-back landslide election victories in 2015 and 2020 – both considered “free and fair” by international monitors. Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were detained during the coup on Feb. 1, 2021 and have been held incommunicado by the regime ever since.
