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Thein Sein during the World Economic Forum (2010)

Thein Sein ( သိန်းစိန် , [ θéɪɴ sèɪɴ ] * 20th April 1945 in Kyonku , Ngapudaw Township , Irrawaddy Division ) was from March 2011 to March 2016 as a civilian first President of Myanmar since the abolition of the Office 1988. From November 2007 to early In February 2011, he was the country's prime minister as the military and successor to Soe Win . He is considered a moderate reformer and during his term in office he carefully opened up the country.

Life

Career and advancement in the military regime

After Thein Sein graduated from a military school in 1968, he served in the army as an officer for over four decades. In 1988 he was employed as a major in the infantry. After completing general staff training and serving as commander of the 89th Infantry Battalion, he was promoted to colonel in 1992. He then served on various staffs and was promoted to brigadier general in 1995. In 1996 he took over command of the Triangle Regional Command in Keng Tung on the border with China , Laos and Thailand for four years . In 1997 he was promoted to major general and appointed to the State Council for Peace and Development (SPDC), the ruling military junta of Burma from 1988 to 2011, which has been headed by Generalissimo Than Shwe since 1992 .

Thein Sein rose in quick succession. In 2002 he was promoted to lieutenant general and in 2003 he was appointed deputy secretary of the SPDC. After the appointment of General Soe Win as Prime Minister on October 19, 2004, Thein Sein moved to the post of First Secretary of the SDPC. He had previously been appointed chairman of the commission for the convening of the National Assembly, which had to draft a new constitution between May 17, 2004 and September 3, 2007, after work on it had been discontinued in 1995.

prime minister

Thein Sein in 2010

After Prime Minister Soe Win, who was seriously ill with leukemia, was no longer able to exercise his official duties, Thein Sein became the managing head of government of Myanmar on May 18, 2007. After Soe Win's death on October 12, 2007, he was appointed Prime Minister by Head of State Than Shwe on October 24, 2007 - at that time still in the rank of lieutenant general. He also chaired the meetings of the National Convention Convening Commission, which was in charge of drafting the new constitution. Shortly after his appointment as prime minister, he was promoted to general before making his inaugural visit to Laos and Vietnam. After the destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis , he headed the “National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee”, whereby the government of Myanmar came under strong criticism as a result of the cyclone when international aid workers were denied access to the affected areas. On May 10, 2008, the constitution, which had been debated since 1993, was officially adopted by 92.48% of the population in a referendum. Previously, the country had not had a constitution since 1988.

In accordance with the new constitution, which guarantees members of the military a quarter of the seats in parliament, but is also intended to initiate a democratization of the country, parliamentary elections were held in 2010 for the first time since 1990. On April 29, 2010, Thein Sein retired from active military service in order to lead the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which was newly founded for the elections, as a civilian . He then led the party in the November 7 elections . The elections, described by international observers as not free and fair, which the largest opposition party, the National League for Democracy, boycotted because of the exclusion of its leader Aung San Suu Kyi , ended with a high victory for the USDP at all political levels. Thein Sein won his own constituency with 91.2% against a candidate from the National Unity Party , initiated by the military government in 1990 , which won a few seats in the election as the second largest party.

Presidency

On February 4, 2011, the new parliament elected Thein Sein as president. He was sworn in with his civilian government on March 30, 2011, while Than Shwe ordered the dissolution of the SPDC military government , which had existed since 1988, on the same day and thus gave up his post as head of state after 19 years. This was a first in that it came to the formal end of military rule and Thein Sein became the first civilian president of Myanmar in fifty years. Tin Aung Myint Oo , a senior member of the former military junta, and Sai Mauk Kham , who had not yet appeared politically , acted as vice-presidents .

Thein Sein pursued a policy of cautious opening of the country. For example, on August 19, 2011, he met Aung San Suu Kyi , a well-known critic of the regime and Nobel Peace Prize winner , who had been under house arrest for many years until November 2010. The orientation of the ASEAN summit in 2014 was given as a foreign policy goal .

In January 2012, Thein Sein fulfilled two important demands by Western governments in just 48 hours to lift economic sanctions against his country. The central government first signed a ceasefire agreement with the Karen rebels, who had been fighting for more autonomy since the late 1940s . He then initiated the release of 651 prisoners, including 591 political prisoners, for whom Aung San Suu Kyi had campaigned. Among these were the freedom fighters Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi . Former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt has also been released from house arrest. In return, on September 19, 2012, the United States lifted sanctions against Thein Sein and Speaker of Parliament Man Shwe . In May of that year, a parliamentary by-election of 45 seats took place, which, in contrast to the previous election, was largely lawful: election observers were admitted, and the opposition party NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi took part in the election and won 43 seats, while the ruling party USDP couldn't win anyone.

In mid-July 2013, Thein Sein announced during a trip abroad in London that he would release all political prisoners by the end of 2013 and resolve conflicts with more than ten ethnic groups in Myanmar through reforms.

After the National League for Democracy's landslide victory in the elections in Myanmar in November 2015, Thein Sein handed over the office of state president to Htin Kyaw as the first fully civilian president of Myanmar on March 30, 2016, emphasizing in advance a peaceful transfer of power and the democratic transformation of Myanmar in over 50 years. Thein Sein then took over the chairmanship of the USDP, which was to be reorganized, after handing it over to Man Shwe as non-partisan president in May 2013 in accordance with the constitution . He was ordained a Buddhist monk on April 4, 2016 to spend five days at Dhamma Dipati Monastery in Pyin U Lwin in the Mandalay Division .

Web links

Commons : Thein Sein  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Current Political Leaders

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thein's curriculum vitae. In: Alternative Asean Network on Burma. Retrieved October 13, 2011 . 
2. ↑ Thein Sein's candidate profile on the official website for the 2010 elections ( memento from September 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on October 19, 2011
3. ↑ Lt-Gen Thein Sein is new PM. In: Myanmar Times. October 29, 2007, accessed October 13, 2011 . 
4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20071017033811/http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=117
5. ^ Last session of the National Convention underway. In: Myanmar Times. July 23, 2007, archived from the original on September 17, 2011 ; Retrieved October 18, 2011 . 
6. ↑ Myanmar PM to visit Laos, Vietnam. In: xinhua. November 7, 2007, accessed October 18, 2011 . 
7. ^ Tight Censorship on Reporting USDP. In: THE IRRAWAY. May 5, 2010; Archived from the original on May 12, 2010 ; Retrieved June 6, 2012 . 
8. ^ Official election results for the Naypyidaw Union Territory , accessed October 19, 2011
9. ↑ Parliament elects new president. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . February 4, 2011, accessed February 4, 2011 . 
10. ↑ Amnesty for 651 prisoners: Burma releases political prisoners from wienerzeitung.at, January 13, 2012 (accessed on January 13, 2012).
11. ↑ Washington lifts sanctions against Thein Sein
12. ↑ Myanmar's President promises release from prison: Political prisoners are to be released ( memento from July 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) at tagesschau.de, July 16, 2013 (accessed on July 16, 2013).
13. ↑ ^{a b} President bids farewell, will lead USDP again in Myanmar Times, January 29, 2016, accessed June 3, 2016
14. ↑ Myanmar swears in Htin Kyaw as first civilian president in decades in: The Guardian , March 30, 2016, accessed April 6, 2016
15. ↑ Myanmar's ex-president Thein Sein becomes Buddhist monk in: The Guardian, April 5, 2016, accessed April 6, 2016