Prime Minister Thein Sein, a general who retired from the army in April last year, is considered a frontrunner among three candidates selected by soldiers and lawmakers this week."The session has started and all members will elect a president. The result should come this afternoon," a Myanmar official told AFP.
A key ally of junta strongman Than Shwe, Thein Sein was tipped for the post even before the vote, heightening fears that the regime held a widely panned election to hide military power behind civilian rule. One of the president's first jobs will be to appoint a government, and he can be confident of little resistance from a parliament dominated by the military and its cronies, analysts said.Under complex parliamentary rules, the upper house, lower house and members of the military each nominated one vice president. A select electoral committee then chooses the president from the three candidates on Friday.
All three presidential nominees are members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party as Myanmar's military, which has ruled the country since 1962, appears set to continue its domination.The two other vice presidents are Tin Aung Myint Oo, another retired top general and Than Shwe ally, and ethnic Shan, Sai Mouk Kham.Than Shwe, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1992, was not among those put forward for the top political post in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
But the 77-year-old has been the subject of a storm of conflicting speculation in recent months and many analysts believe he will attempt to retain some sort of control behind the scenes.The formation of a national assembly in Naypyidaw and 14 regional assemblies, convened for the first time on Monday, takes the country towards the final stage of the junta's so-called "roadmap" to a "disciplined democracy".
But a quarter of the seats were kept aside for the military even before the vote, and the country's first poll in 20 years was marred by the absence of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and claims of cheating and intimidation.The opposition National Democratic Force (NDF), which split from Suu Kyi's party in order to contest the vote, has a total of 12 seats in the legislature's two chambers, and the Democratic Party (Myanmar) has none.