Win Myint ( ; born 8 November 1951) is a Burmese politician who served as the tenth

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 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 Myanmar The Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်သူ့လွှတ်တော် ဥက္ကဋ္ဌ) is the presiding officer or Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw The Pyithu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်သူ့ လွှတ်တေ ...

from 2016 to 2018. He also served as a member of parliament in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

(Pyithu Hluttaw) from 2012 to 2018. Win Myint was viewed as an important ally and placeholder for State Counsellor

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 ...

, who served as the actual head of government but was constitutionally barred from the presidency. Win Myint currently heads the

National Unity Government of Myanmar The National Unity Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar ( my, အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရ; abbreviated NUG) is a Myanmar government in exile formed by the Committee Representing Pyidau ...

and, as of 24 November 2022, is still listed as the President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in the United Nations list of Heads of State, Heads of Government, and Ministers for Foreign Affairs of all Member States.

Early life and education

Win Myint was born in Nyaung Chaung Village,

Danubyu Danubyu ( my, ဓနုဖြူမြို့ ) is a town in the Ayeyarwady Division of south-west Myanmar, located on the west bank of the Ayeyarwaddy River in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta. It is the seat of the Danubyu Township in the Maubin District ...

Ayeyarwady Region Ayeyarwady Region ( my, ဧရာဝတီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး , , ; formerly Ayeyarwady Division and Irrawaddy Division), is a region of Myanmar, occupying the delta region of the Ayeyarwady River (Irrawaddy River). It is bor ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

to parents Tun Kyin and

Daw Daw or DAW may refer to: People and language * Daw (given name) * Daw (surname) * Daw, an honorific used in Burmese name#Honorifics, Burmese names * Dâw people, an indigenous people of Brazil * Dâw language, a language of Brazil * Davaoeño lang ...

Than. He graduated with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

degree in

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

from the

Rangoon Arts and Science University '') , mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom. , established = , type = Public , rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun , undergrad = 4194 , postgrad = 5748 , city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon , state = Yangon Regio ...

. He is married to Cho Cho and the couple has one daughter, Phyu Phyu Thin, a senior advisor of City Mart Holdings.

Political career

1988 uprising and 1990 election

After graduating in geology from Rangoon Arts and Science University, Win Myint became a High Court senior lawyer in 1981 and become a lawyer of the

Supreme Court of Myanmar The Supreme Court of Myanmar ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုတရားလွှတ်တော်ချုပ်) is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal under the Constitution of Myanmar, existing as an independent ju ...

. In 1985, he became a High Court advocate. He was jailed for his role in the

8888 Uprising The 8888 Uprising ( my, ၈၈၈၈ အရေးအခင်း), also known as the People Power UprisingYawnghwe (1995), pp. 170 and the 1988 Uprising, was a series of nationwide protests, marches, and riots in Burma (present-day Myanmar) th ...

, and has been described by some who have met him as rather a closed book. Out of jail in time for the

1990 Myanmar general election General elections were held in Myanmar on 27 May 1990, the first multi-party elections since 1960, after which the country had been ruled by a military dictatorship. The elections were for a parliament-sized constitutional committee to draft ...

, which the military later nullified, he ran successfully for

’s

Danubyu Township Danuphyu Township ( my, ဓနုဖြူမြို့နယ်) is a township of Maubin District in the Ayeyarwady Region of Burma (Myanmar). Danubyu Township is known as the death place of the general Maha Bandula at Danubyu Fort effectively ...

, winning a majority of 20,388 (56% of the votes), but was never allowed to assume his seat.

2012 by-election and 2015 election

He resumed his political career in the 2012 Myanmar by-elections, winning 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 ...

, lower house seat in

Pathein Pathein (, ; mnw, ဖာသီ, ), formerly called Bassein, is the largest city and the capital of the Ayeyarwady Region, Myanmar (Burma). It is located 190 km (120 mi) west of Yangon within Pathein Township on the bank of the Pathei ...

constituency, and going on to become secretary of parliament’s rule of law committee. In the

2015 Myanmar general election General elections were held in Myanmar on 8 November 2015, with the National League for Democracy winning a supermajority of seats in the combined national parliament. Voting occurred in all constituencies, excluding seats appointed by the mil ...

, he was elected as

MP for

Tamwe Township Tamwe Township (also Tarmwe Township; my, တာမွေ မြို့နယ်, ) is located in east central Yangon, Myanmar. The township comprises 20 wards, and shares borders with Yankin Township in the north, Thingangyun Township and Min ...

. He served as the

from 2016 to 2018.

Presidency

Following the resignation of

Htin Kyaw Htin Kyaw ( my, ထင်ကျော်, or ; born 20 July 1946) is a Burmese politician, writer and scholar who served as the ninth president of Myanmar from 30 March 2016 to 21 March 2018. He was the first elected president to hold the off ...

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 ...

, Win Myint resigned as Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw on 21 March 2018, a move seen by many as a preparation by the

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 ...

for Win Myint to be put forward as a candidate for the presidency. He was succeeded by his deputy

T Khun Myat 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 lower house of the Myanmar parliament. In both 2010 election an ...

. The Pyithu Hluttaw confirmed the election of Win Myint as the House of Representatives' nominee for vice president on 23 March 2018, paving the way for Win Myint to enter the election process for the next President of Myanmar. He defeated Union Solidarity and Development Party's candidate Thaung Aye with 273 votes to the latter's 27. Win Myint was elected as the 10th

by 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 ...

(a combined meeting of the two houses of the national legislature) on 28 March 2018, with 403 out of 636 lawmakers voting for him. On 17 April 2018, Win Myint granted

amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...

to 8,500 prisoners, including 51 foreigners and 36 political prisoners. On 1 February 2021, Win Myint was detained by military along with fellow parliament members including the Democratic party leader, Aung Sun Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw city. His presidency was removed by military dictator lead,

Min Aung Hlaing Min Aung Hlaing ( my, မင်းအောင်လှိုင် abbreviated: MAL ; born 3 July 1956) also known as Alaungsithu is a Burmese politician and army general who has ruled Myanmar as the chairman of the State Administration Coun ...

and replaced with vice-president,

Myint Swe Myint Swe ( my, မြင့်ဆွေ, ; born 24 May 1951) is a Burmese politician currently serving as Acting President of Myanmar as well as Vice-President of Myanmar, First Vice President. He previously served as the acting president aft ...

. Later on 4 February 2021, Win Myint was charged two-weeks custody for violating rules banning gatherings during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Trial hearings commenced on 16 February. On 11 October, a Naypyidaw judge formally indicted Win Myint under Section 25 of the Disaster Management Law, which carries a maximum three-year prison sentence. During Win Myint's testimony on 12 October, he revealed that on 1 February in the lead-up to the coup, two senior military generals had attempted to force him to resign, under the guise of "ill health." On 6 December 2021, Win Myint and Suu Kyi were both sentenced to 4 years in jail.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Members of Pyithu Hluttaw Speakers of the House of Representatives of Myanmar National League for Democracy politicians Prisoners and detainees of Myanmar 1951 births Living people Leaders ousted by a coup People from Ayeyarwady Region University of Yangon alumni Presidents of Myanmar