Resignation of the president of burma Htin Kyaw, close to Aung San Suu Kyi

News 21 March, 2018
  • AFP

    AFP

    Wednesday, 21 march, 2018 03:21

    UPDATE
    Wednesday, 21 march, 2018 03:21

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    YANGON, Burma | The burmese president Htin Kyaw, who lived in the shadow of Aung San Suu Kyi, has resigned on Wednesday with immediate effect, nearly two years after taking office, at a challenging time for the country, accused of ethnic cleansing.

    “The president Htin Kyaw has asked the 21 march 2018 to be relieved of his duties”, said the presidency in a short press release published on his page Facebook.

    This scholar, son of a poet burmese renamed and childhood friend of Aung San Suu Kyi, was become in April 2016 the first civilian to this position for decades.

    No reason was advanced by the presidency to explain this resignation, but Htin Kyaw had appeared very thin in recent months and speculation about his health had increased in the press.

    Aung San Suu Kyi had been placed in this faithful companion of dissent to this position, primarily honorary in the current configuration, because she can’t take care of it for constitutional reasons. It is, in effect, forbids anyone with children of foreign nationality – which is the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has two sons in the uk – to hold the office of president.

    In the inability to change the Constitution, the latter had clearly explained after the election that it would be “above” the president.

    New challenge

    She now has seven days after the press release of the presidency to find a replacement to the one that will be shortly expressed in his two years in office, and almost never on sensitive issues.

    “If it is a close friend of Aung San Suu Kyi, things should continue normally, the post of president is largely ceremonial since the creation of the State advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi,” said Mael Raynaud, a specialist in Burma.

    This is a new challenge for Aung San Suu Kyi, who embodied tremendous hopes on its arrival to power in 2016, but the country is now in turmoil.

    Burma is accused by the un of ethnic cleansing of the muslim population of rohingya in the west of the country. Nearly 700,000 of them fled to Bangladesh to escape a campaign by the burmese army.

    If it retains the confidence of the great majority of Burmese, the Nobel peace prize in 1991, has been criticized for its lack of compassion for the Rohingya and for his silence on the role of the army, with which it must cope on the political level.

    And in the scenes, the political blame Suu Kyi for having concentrated too much power in his hands and stifle debate within the party.

    The government of the former dissident sentence in addition to relaunch the country: ethnic wars, which are economic and social reforms which are long, the criticism on the international stage accumulate.

    For decades, Burma has lived under military dictatorship and dreamed of democracy.

    The expectations of the Burmese were so very high after the historic elections in November 2015, which brought to power the Lady of Rangoon and his party, the national League for democracy (NLD).