T Khun Myat ( my, တီခွန်မြတ် ; born 30 October 1949) is a Burmese politician, lawyer and Speaker of the Union Assembly, the Joint House and

Pyithu Hluttaw The Pyithu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်သူ့ လွှတ်တော်, ; House of Representatives) is the ''de jure'' lower house of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the bicameral legislature of Myanmar (Burma). It consists of 440 members, of whic ...

, the lower house of the Myanmar parliament. In both 2010 election and 2015 election, he contested and won the

Kutkai Township Kutkai Township is a township of Muse District in the Shan State of eastern Burma. The principal town is Kutkai. Geography It shares the border with Laukkaing Township (Laukkai Township) of Laukkaing District in the east. It shares the borders wi ...

constituency for a seat in the country's lower house. After the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

coup in 2021, according to Article (424) of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

and Article (17) of the Pyithu Hluttaw Law, T Khun Myat continues to serve as the Speaker of the Hluttaw.

Background

T Khun Myat is an ethnic Kachin and descendant of a prominent Kachin traditional ruling ''Duwa'' family, the "T" at the beginning of his name comes from his family clan name ''Tangbau''. He is a Christian.

Career

T Khun Myat served as the legal director at the Office of the Attorney General as well as the leader of People's Militia Forces in

under the control of

Burmese Army The Myanmar Army ( my, တပ်မတော်(ကြည်း), ) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, Armed Forces (''Tatmadaw'') of Myanmar (Burma) and has the primary responsibility of conducting land-based military operations. The My ...

between 1990 and 2010. He was involved in the commission drafting the

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

in 2007 and the commission of

2008 Myanmar constitutional referendum A constitutional referendum was held in Myanmar on 10 May 2008 (24 May 2008 in some townships) according to an announcement by the State Peace and Development Council in February 2008. According to the military government, the new Constitution o ...

. He also served as the executive member of

Union Solidarity and Development Party The Union Solidarity and Development Party ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုကြံ့ခိုင်ရေးနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးပါတီ; abbr. USDP) is a political party in Myanmar, registered on ...

for northern

Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...

. He was elected as a member of the Pyithu Hluttaw in the 2010 general elections for the Shan State constituency of Kutkai. He was also chair of the Committee on Bills in the Lower House (2011–16), a body tasked with drafting new legislation and amending or repealing laws considered out of date. Along with the other allies of

Shwe Mann '' Thura'' Shwe Mann ( my, သူရ ရွှေမန်း, ; born 11 July 1947) is a Burmese politician who was Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw, the lower house of parliament from 31 January 2011 to 29 January 2016.Freeman, A. & Roads, J"Myanm ...

, T Khun Myatt was sacked from the Union Solidarity and Development Party. Following the resignation of

Win Myint Win Myint ( ; born 8 November 1951) is a Burmese politician who served as the tenth president of Myanmar from 2018 to 2021. He was removed from office in the 2021 Burmese coup d'état. He was the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Myanm ...

as speaker of the House of Representatives, T Khun Myatt was elected by the Pyithu Hluttaw as the next speaker. He was sworn in on 22 March 2018. Although many state- and union-level politicians, including

Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from ...

and

, were placed under house arrest during the

2021 Myanmar coup d'état A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's military—which then veste ...

on 1 February, T Khun Myat remained in his office under the Constitution of Myanmar. He attended the meeting of

National Defence and Security Council The National Defence and Security Council ( my, အမျိုးသား ကာကွယ်ရေးနှင့် လုံခြုံရေး ကောင်စီ, ; abbreviated NDSC) is an eleven-member national security council respons ...

which was hold on 31 January 2022.That meeting extended the State of Emergency to next (6) months.

Drug controversy

T Khun Myat was the former leader of a militia in

and accused of involvement in illicit drug trade and money laundering. He had been a shareholder in the now-defunct Myanmar May Flower Bank, which was abolished due to money laundering in the illicit drugs industry. He has denied any accusation of his involvement in the drug trade.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:T Khun Myat Members of Pyithu Hluttaw Speakers of the House of Representatives of Myanmar 1949 births Living people Burmese people of Kachin descent Burmese Christians