| President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar |
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State Seal of Myanmar |
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| Nominator | Assembly of the Union |
| Appointer | Presidential Electoral College |
| Term length | Five years, renewable once |
| Inaugural holder | Sao Shwe Thaik |
| Formation | 4 January 1948 |
| Burma (Myanmar) |
This article is part of the series: |
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| Government |
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Assembly of the Union |
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Cabinet |
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Supreme Court |
| Elections |
| Related topics |
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Foreign relations |
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The President of Burma is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and leads the executive branch of the Burmese government, and heads the Cabinet of Burma. The president is elected by members of parliament, not by the general population. The Presidential Electoral College, a three committee body, elects the president.[1] Each of the three committees, made up of Amyotha Hluttaw, Pyithu Hluttaw members of parliament, or military-appointed lawmakers, nominates a candidate for presidency.[1] The candidate with the highest number of votes from the Electoral College is elected president, while the two other candidates become vice-presidents.[1]
The incumbent President is Thein Sein, who has held the post since 30 March 2011.
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According to the Constitution of Burma, the President:
Moreover, upon taking oath in office, the President is constitutionally forbidden from taking part in any political party activities (Chapter III, 64).
The President is not directly elected by Burmese voters; instead, he is indirectly elected by the Presidential Electoral College (သမ္မတရွေးချယ်တင်မြှောက်ရေးအဖွဲ့), an electoral body made of three separate committees. One committee is composed of MPs who represent the proportions of MPs elected from each Region or State; another is composed of MPs who represent the proportions of MPs elected from each township population; the third is of military-appointed MPs personally nominated by the Defence Services' Commander-in-Chief. Each of the three committees nominates a presidential candidate. Afterward, all the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw MPs vote for one of three candidates—the candidate with the highest number of votes is elected President, while the other two are elected as Vice-Presidents.
This process is similar to the one proscribed by the 1947 Constitution, in which MPs from the Parliament's Chamber of Nationalities and Chamber of Deputies elected the President by secret ballot.[2] The President was then responsible for appointing a Prime Minister (on the advice of the Chamber of Deputies), who was constitutionally recognised as the head of government and led the Cabinet.
Prior to 1862, different regions of modern-day Burma were governed separately. From 1862 to 1923, the colonial administration, housed in Rangoon's Secretariat building, was headed by a Chief Commissioner (1862–1897) or a Lieutenant-Governor (1897–1923), who headed the administration, underneath the Governor-General of India.[3] From 31 January 1862 to 1 May 1897, British Burma was headed by a Chief Commissioner. The subsequent expansion of British Burma, with the acquisitions of Upper Burma and the Shan States throughout this period increased the demands of the position, and led to an upgrade in the colonial leadership and an expansion of government (Burma was accorded a separate government and legislative council in 1897).[4]
Consequently, from 1 May 1897 to 2 January 1923, the province was led by a Lieutenant Governor. In 1937, Burma was formally separated from British India and began to be administered as a separate British colony, with a fully elected bicameral legislature, consisting of the Senate and House of Representatives. From 2 January 1923 to 4 January 1948, British Burma was led by a Governor, who led the cabinet and was responsible for the colony's defence, foreign relations, finance, and ethnic regions (Frontier Areas and Shan States). From 1 January 1944 to 31 August 1946, a British Military Governor governed the colony. During the Japanese occupation of Burma from 1942 to 1945, a Japanese military commander headed the government, while the British-appointed Governor headed the colony in exile.
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