Shwe Mann

Thura Shwe Mann (Burmese: သူရ ရွှေမန်း, pronounced; 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. He is a former army general and, whilst being a protégé of senior general Than Shwe, was considered the third most powerful man in the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which ruled Myanmar until 2011. He was the first to be appointed as Chief of the General Staff (Army, Navy and Air), the third highest military appointment in Myanmar, in 2001.

He was elected to parliament in the 2010 general election. He was later selected as Speaker of the lower House at the first regular session of the Pyithu Hluttaw in 2011. He was crucial in the newly found activism of the Lower House vis-à-vis the Upper House and the executive.

In May 2013, he replaced PresidentThein Sein as head of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). That same year, he confirmed he would run for president in 2015. Amidst reports of tensions between Shwe Mann and Thein Sein, the former was removed from his post as head of the USDP in August 2015. Finally he was sacked from USDP together with other 17 senior members in April 2016. He later founded the Union Betterment Party (UBP), which existed from 2019 to 2022.