Thein Sein ( my, သိန်းစိန်;
IPA: ; born 20 April 1944) is a Burmese politician and retired general in the
Myanmar 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 ...
who served as the eighth
President of Myanmar
The president of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar () is the head of state and constitutional head of government of Myanmar. The president leads the Cabinet of Myanmar, the executive branch of the Burmese government. The current presiden ...
from 2011 to 2016. He previously served as
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
from 2007 to 2010, and was considered by many in and outside Myanmar as a reformist leader in the post-
junta
Junta may refer to:
Government and military
* Junta (governing body) (from Spanish), the name of various historical and current governments and governing institutions, including civil ones
** Military junta, one form of junta, government led by ...
government.
His government undertook a series of
political reforms including some deregulation of the country's
censored media, releasing many political prisoners and halting the country's
controversial large Chinese-led hydro-power project. The developments that followed included Myanmar's appointment to chair
ASEAN
ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, militar ...
in 2014, improved
relations with the US, the release of
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 ...
– his
2015 general election rival – from
house arrest
In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if all ...
, and the reinstatement of major opposition party
National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; Abbreviation, abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanm ...
(NLD) in the
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
held on 1 April 2012.
Early life
Thein Sein was born in
Kyonku, a small
Irrawaddy delta
The Irrawaddy Delta or Ayeyarwady Delta lies in the Irrawaddy Division, the lowest expanse of land in Myanmar that fans out from the limit of tidal influence at Myan Aung to the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, to the south at the mouth of the A ...
village near
Hainggyi Island in what is now
Ngapudaw Township to Maung Phyo (father) and Khin Nyunt (mother) in 1944 during the
Japanese occupation.
He was the youngest of three children. His parents were landless farmers, and his father made a living carrying cargo at the river jetty and weaving bamboo mats.
Thein Sein's father Maung Phyo became a
Buddhist monk 10 years after his wife's death, and spent his remaining years as a monk.
Military career
Thein Sein graduated from the 9th intake of the
Defence Services Academy
The Defence Services Academy ( my, စစ်တက္ကသိုလ်, ) located in Pyin Oo Lwin, is the premier military service academy of Myanmar, training future officers for all three branches of Myanmar military. The Ministry of Defence ...
with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968, becoming a
second lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
afterward.
Throughout Thein Sein's four-decade long military career, he was considered a bureaucrat, not a combat soldier. In 1988, he served as a major for
Sagaing Division
Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...
's 55th Light Infantry Division and later served as a commander for Sagaing Division's 89th Infantry Battalion in
Kalay Township. The following year, he studied at the Command and General Staff College in
Kalaw
Kalaw ( my, ကလောမြို့; Shan: ) is a hill town in the Shan State of Myanmar. It is located in Kalaw Township in Taunggyi District.
Overview
The town was popular with the British during colonial rule. Kalaw is the main setting ...
,
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. ...
.
By 1991, he had returned to
Yangon
Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
, after being promoted to the rank of colonel and 1st Grade General Staff Officer in the War Office. He was then promoted to brigadier general, but remained at his position in the War Office, which marked the first time a brigadier general was promoted to General Staff Officer. In 1993, he was recruited as the commander of
Yangon Division
Yangon Region(, ; formerly Rangoon Division and Yangon Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar. Located in the heart of Lower Myanmar, the division is bordered by Bago Region to the north and east, the Gulf of Martaban to the south, and ...
's Military Operations Command 4 in
Hmawbi
Hmawbi Township is a township in the Yangon Region of Myanmar (Burma). It is located northwest of the city of Yangon. The principal town and administrative seat is Hmawbi. The Hmawbi airport is at Indan (Inntan), northeast of the town of Hmawbi ...
. Three years later in 1996, he was appointed to lead the new Triangle Regional Military Command in
Kyaingtong
th , เชียงตุง
, other_name = Kyaingtong
, settlement_type = Town
, imagesize =
, image_caption =
, pushpin_map = Myanmar
, pushpin_label_position = left
, ...
,
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. ...
, serving this role for another three years (1998–2001).
In 1998, he became a member of the
State Peace and Development Council
The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...
and was appointed as Secretary-2 in 2001.
He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general that year. After
Khin Nyunt
General Khin Nyunt (; ; born 23 October 1939) is a Burmese military officer and politician. He held the office of Chief of Intelligence and was Prime Minister of Myanmar from 25 August 2003 until 18 October 2004.
Early life and education
Kh ...
was deposed and
Soe Win became Prime Minister in 2004, he was promoted to Secretary-1 and promoted to General in late 2004.
Prime Minister
![Thein Sein and Abhisit Vejjajiva handshake](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Thein_Sein_and_Abhisit_Vejjajiva_handshake.jpg)
Thein Sein was appointed in April 2007 by the nation's ruling military junta as interim prime minister, replacing
Soe Win, who was undergoing medical treatment for
leukaemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...
.
[Burmese junta choose stand-in PM](_blank)
BBC.co.uk; retrieved 20 May 2007.[Burmese Junta Tips New Prime Minister](_blank)
retrieved 20 May 2007. He was formally appointed as Soe Win's permanent successor on 24 October 2007 after Soe Win's death on 12 October 2007.
He held the position of first secretary in the ruling
State Peace and Development Council
The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...
junta
Junta may refer to:
Government and military
* Junta (governing body) (from Spanish), the name of various historical and current governments and governing institutions, including civil ones
** Military junta, one form of junta, government led by ...
. He was the country's fourth-highest ranking general, and also served as the chairman of the government-sponsored National Convention Convening Commission. Thein Sein carried out high-level negotiations with
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
and
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
.
In 2007, sometime after his official appointment as prime minister, he was promoted to the rank of general from lieutenant general.
[Myanmar PM to visit Laos, Vietnam](_blank)
Xinhua. Retrieved 7 November 2007. On his first official visit outside Myanmar as prime minister, Thein Sein carried out high-level negotiations with
Laos
Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
, Vietnam and Cambodia. In the aftermath of
Cyclone Nargis
Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Nargis ( my, နာဂစ်, ur, نرگس ) was an extremely destructive and deadly tropical cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Myanmar during early May 2008. The cyclone m ...
in May 2008, he led the National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee as chairman and was criticised for the government's systematic blocking of relief efforts.
Presidency
Election and appointment
On 29 April 2010, he retired from 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 ...
, along with 22 other military officials, to lead the
Union Solidarity and Development Party
The Union Solidarity and Development Party ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုကြံ့ခိုင်ရေးနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးပါတီ; abbr. USDP) is a political party in Myanmar, registered on ...
as a civilian. During the
2010 general election, he was head of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which contested in a controversial election and won the overwhelming majority of seats in the
Pyidaungsu Hluttaw
The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စု လွှတ်တော် lit. Assembly of the Union) is the ''de jure'' national-level bicameral legislature of Myanmar (officially known as the ''Republic of the Union of M ...
. Thein Sein ran against
National Unity Party The National Unity Party, National United Party, Party of National Unity or National Unity Front may refer to:
* National United Party of Afghanistan (founded 2003)
* National Unity Party (Albania)
* National United Party (Armenia), defunct
* Natio ...
candidate Kyaw Aye during the election, contesting a
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 ...
seat to represent the constituents of
Naypyidaw Union Territory
The Naypyitaw Union Territory ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုနယ်မြေ နေပြည်တော်), also called Naypyitaw Council Territory () (Naypyitaw also spelled Nay Pyi Taw, Naypyidaw or Nay Pyi Daw) is an administr ...
's
Zabuthiri Township Zabuthiri Township ( my, ဇမ္ဗူသီရိမြို့နယ်) is one of Naypyidaw Union Territory's eight townships, located south of Mandalay Region in Burma.
History
Zabuthiri Township was formed from part of Mandalay Division's ...
. He purportedly won 91.2% of the votes (65,620).
On 4 February 2011, he was elected by the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw's
Presidential Electoral College
The Presidential Electoral College ( my, သမ္မတရွေးချယ်တင်မြှောက်ရေးအဖွဲ့) is an electoral college made up of MPs that elects the President of Myanmar.
Composition
It consists of thre ...
as the next
President of Myanmar
The president of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar () is the head of state and constitutional head of government of Myanmar. The president leads the Cabinet of Myanmar, the executive branch of the Burmese government. The current presiden ...
, becoming the country's first non-interim civilian president in 49 years.
Tin Aung Myint Oo
'' Thihathura'' Tin Aung Myint Oo ( my, တင်အောင်မြင့်ဦး ; born 29 May 1949) is a Burmese former military official and politician who served as First Vice President of Myanmar from 30 March 2011 to 1 July 2012. He is ...
and
Sai Mauk Kham were named as the new vice-presidents. He was sworn in on 30 March 2011 alongside the two vice-presidents and the newly elected parliament.
Regional policy
In the first month of his presidency, he sought the support of
ASEAN
ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, militar ...
Secretary-General
Surin Pitsuwan
Surin Abdul Halim bin Ismail Pitsuwan ( th, สุรินทร์ พิศสุวรรณ; Jawi: سورين عبدالحاليم بن اسماعيل ڤيتسووان; October 28, 1949 – November 30, 2017) was a Thai diplomat and politici ...
to support Myanmar's bid to chair the
ASEAN Summit
The ASEAN Summit is a biannual meeting held by the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in relation to economic, political, security, and socio-cultural development of Southeast Asian countries. In addition, it serves ...
in 2014. As of July 2011, the government has formed a planning committee led by foreign affairs minister
Wunna Maung Lwin
Wunna Maung Lwin ( my, ဝဏ္ဏမောင်လွင်; born 30 May 1952,) is a Burmese politician and incumbent Minister of Foreign Affairs, appointed by Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Min Aung Hlaing after the 2021 Myanmar coup ...
. In his presidency, Myanmar took the ASEAN chairmanship in 2014. ASEAN summit was held in
Naypyidaw
Naypyidaw, officially spelled Nay Pyi Taw (; ), is the capital and third-largest city of Myanmar. The city is located at the centre of the Naypyidaw Union Territory. It is unusual among Myanmar's cities, as it is an entirely planned city o ...
in the same year.
Domestic policy
Some have considered Thein Sein as a moderate because he was willing to engage with
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 ...
; he had a high-profile meeting with her in Naypyidaw on 19 August 2011. On 17 August 2011, he was quoted by the state newspaper, ''
The New Light of Myanmar
''The New Light of Myanmar'' (, ; formerly ''The New Light of Burma'') is a government-owned newspaper published by the Ministry of Information and based in Yangon, Myanmar.
''The New Light of Myanmar'' is often viewed as propaganda on part of t ...
'' as saying:
Various news sources interpreted his suggestion as an invitation for overseas Burmese citizens to return to their country of origin and help rebuild the
Burmese economy.
![Clinton and President Thein Sein](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Clinton_and_President_Thein_Sein.jpg)
In 2012, Thein Sein proposed that the minority
Rohingya
The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...
ethnic group, which had lived in Burma for hundreds of years, be "resettled" abroad, a proposal the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
was quick to object to. Thein Sein has also supported domestic policies that label Rohingya as "non-citizens". He has said that the
2012 Rakhine State riots
The 2012 Rakhine State riots were a series of conflicts primarily between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, though by October Muslims of all ethnicities had begun to be targeted. The riots start ...
"has nothing to do with race or religion."
2012 cabinet reshuffle
On 27 August 2012, Thein Sein announced a major cabinet reshuffle of 9 ministers and 15 deputy ministers, to consolidate the authority of his office by removing hardliner ministers and replacing them with political allies.
Among the more prominent changes was the transfer of
Kyaw Hsan from the post of
Minister for Information to Minister of Cooperatives, and the appointment of
Aung Min
Aung Min ( my, အောင်မင်း) is the incumbent Minister of the President's Office of Myanmar (Burma), chairperson of Myanmar Peace Centre and a former Minister for Rail Transportation of Myanmar (Burma). He is also a retired Major Ge ...
,
Tin Naing Thein
Tin Naing Thein ( my, တင်နိုင်သိန်း, born 1955) is the former Minister of the President's Office of Myanmar, Minister for National Planning and Economic Development and Minister for Livestock and Fisheries. He is a retir ...
and
Soe Thein
Soe Thein ( my, စိုးသိန်း; born 7 September 1949 in Rangoon, Burma), also spelt Soe Thane, served as Minister of the President's Office of Myanmar (Burma) between 2011 and 2016 and a former Minister for Industry-2 of Myanmar (Bu ...
, all former lieutenants under Thein Sein, to the posts of Minister of the President's Office.
Union Solidarity and Development Party
On 16 October 2012, Thein Sein was re-elected as the chairman of the
Union Solidarity and Development Party
The Union Solidarity and Development Party ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုကြံ့ခိုင်ရေးနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးပါတီ; abbr. USDP) is a political party in Myanmar, registered on ...
(USDP) at the USDP's first party conference in
Naypyidaw
Naypyidaw, officially spelled Nay Pyi Taw (; ), is the capital and third-largest city of Myanmar. The city is located at the centre of the Naypyidaw Union Territory. It is unusual among Myanmar's cities, as it is an entirely planned city o ...
.
This is in direct contradiction to the 2008
Constitution of Myanmar
The Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ, links=, transli ...
, which states:
According to the constitution, he was technically barred from taking part in party activities during his term of office. Because of mounting criticism over his dual role, Thein Sein handed over the chairman position of party to
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 ...
on 1 May 2013. But Thein Sein will continue to play a leadership role within the ruling party and did not disqualify himself from consideration as the party's presidential candidate of 2015 election.
Post-presidency
A day after Thein Sein left office, the Democratic Voices of Burma published a news article that the ex-president would be ordaining as a
monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
on 1 April 2016 for a few days, a tradition for Burmese Buddhist men. According to the DVB, a 'spokesperson close to the President' refused to disclose where he would be ordained, but it would be in a "small, peaceful town".
According to a Facebook post, he was temporarily ordained under
Ashin Nandamalabhivamsa
Ashin Nandamālābhivaṃsa ( my, အရှင် နန္ဒမာလာ ဘိဝံသ) (born 22 March 1939), commonly known by his position as Rector Sayadaw ( my, ပါမောက္ခချုပ် ဆရာတော်), is a Burmes ...
in a monastery in
Pyin Oo Lwin
Pyin Oo Lwin or Pyin U Lwin (, ; Shan: ), formerly and colloquially referred to as Maymyo (), is a scenic hill town in the Mandalay Region, Myanmar, some east of Mandalay, and at an elevation of . The town was estimated to have a population of ...
under the monastic name U Santidhamma. Thein Sein has since lived in quiet retirement, maintaining his silence following 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 ...
.
Personal life
Thein Sein is married to
Khin Khin Win. The couple have three daughters.
One of his daughter, Yin Thuzar Thein, who is married to a military captain, Han Win Aung. He suffers from
heart disease
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, hea ...
and uses a
pacemaker
An artificial cardiac pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, so as not to be confused with the natural cardiac pacemaker) or pacemaker is a medical device that generates electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the chambers of the heart eith ...
.
References
, -
{{Authority control
1944 births
Burmese military personnel
Burmese Theravada Buddhists
Defence Services Academy alumni
Living people
People from Ayeyarwady Region
Presidents of Myanmar
Prime Ministers of Myanmar
Recipients of the Order of the Union of Myanmar
Union Solidarity and Development Party politicians
21st-century Burmese politicians