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| President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar | |
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| ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် သမ္မတ | |
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| Style | Mr. President (informal) His Excellency (formal) |
| Type | Head of state |
| Member of | Union Government (normally) National Defence and Security Council |
| Residence | Presidential Palace |
| Seat | Naypyidaw |
| Nominator | Assembly of the Union |
| Appointer | Presidential Electoral College |
| Term length | Five years, renewable once |
| Constituting instrument | Constitution of Myanmar |
| Precursor | Governor of Burma |
| Formation | 4 January 1948; 77 years ago (1948-01-04) |
| First holder | Sao Shwe Thaik |
| Deputy | Vice President |
| Salary | K5 million/US$ 2,385 per month[3] |
| Website | www |
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Government
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Judiciary
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Exiled government
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 Myanmar portal |
Thepresident of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Burmese:နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတ,MLCTS:nuing ngam tau samma.ta.) is thehead of state and constitutionalhead of government ofMyanmar.[4] The president chairs theNational Defence and Security Council and nominally leads theUnion Government (Cabinet), theexecutive branch of the Burmese government, though leadership of the cabinet is being exercised by theprime minister of Myanmar during the current transition.Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military and Myanmar's ruler since 2021, has been exercising presidential duties on theNational Defence and Security Council since Acting PresidentMyint Swe transferred his duties on 22 July 2024. Myint Swe had himself been installed by Min Aung Hlaing through amilitary coup d'état on 1 February 2021. There is no constitutional mechanism for the transfer of presidential authority outside the order of succession, making the constitutionality of the transfer questionable according to legal experts.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The position has been formally vacant since Myint Swe's death on 7 August 2025. Though a constitutionally powerful position, the presidency is a largely symbolic post under the current military government, with the only presidential action having been to declare and extend the state of emergency.[12][9][13]
The president is elected bymembers of parliament, not by the general population; specifically thePresidential Electoral College, a three-committee body composed of members of parliament, elects the president.[14] Each of the three committees, made up ofAmyotha Hluttaw,Pyithu Hluttaw members of parliament, or military-appointed lawmakers, nominates a candidate for presidency.[14]
After the 2015 election, the extraconstitutional post ofState Counsellor of Myanmar was created forAung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the majority party, theNational League for Democracy, because she was ineligible for the presidency. She served as thede facto head of government until she was deposed in the 2021 coup d'état byCommander-in-Chief of Defence ServicesMin Aung Hlaing, who created the extraconstitutional posts ofchairman of the State Administration Council and prime minister for himself to lead the government.
The president is the head of state and head of government. The position of President was created in 1948, with the adoption of theBurmese Declaration of Independence from theUnited Kingdom. Since then, ten people have officially held the office. The office of the president was abolished twice when direct military rule was imposed by the coups of 1962 and 1988.
In the parliamentary system practised in 1948-1962, the Union President was the ceremonial head of state while prime minister is the actual head of government. The 1962 Coup abolished both offices of the Union President and Prime Minister, and the junta leader assumed the powers of both head of state and head of government as the Chairman of Revolutionary Council and Revolutionary Government.
The 1974 Constitution reintroduced the office with the title President of the Republic, to be held by the Chairman of the Council of State. Both of these positions were abolished again by the 1988 Coup where State Law and Order Restoration Council replaced them.
The 2008 Constitution introduced the presidential system, in which the president is both the head of state and the head of government. This presidential system was adopted upon the inauguration of former-general U Thein Sein as the first president under 2008 Constitution in 2011.
TheConstitution of Myanmar sets the principle qualifications that the candidate must meet to be eligible for the office of the President. in Chapter 1: The President, Part I: The Federation of Myanmar in theConstitution of Myanmar. President has to be:
According to theConstitution of Myanmar, the president:
Moreover, upon taking oath in office, the president is constitutionally forbidden from taking part in any political party activities (Chapter III, 64).
Under the 2011 Constitution of Myanmar, the president is given the powers:
The president is not directly elected by Burmese voters; instead, they are indirectly elected by thePresidential 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 theDefence Services' commander-in-chief.
Each of the three committees nominates a presidential candidate. Afterward, all thePyidaungsu 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. The president serves for a term of 5 years. Should a president resign for any reason or die in office, the Presidential Electoral College will meet and each of the three committees will nominate a candidate to finish out the prior President's term so that the terms of the legislature and presidency are synchronised. The candidate who receives the most votes from the nominees is elected.
This process is similar to the one prescribed by the1947 Constitution, in which MPs from theParliament's Chamber of Nationalities and Chamber of Deputies elected the president by secret ballot.[15] The President was then responsible for appointing aprime minister (on the advice of the Chamber of Deputies), who was constitutionally recognised as thehead of government and led theCabinet.
Before independence, Myanmar had two quasi-constitutions, The government of Burma Act, 1935 and Constitution of Burma under Japanese occupation, 1943. After independence, Myanmar adopted three constitutions in 1947, 1974 and 2008. The 2008 constitution is the present constitution of Myanmar.
Prior to 1863, different regions of modern-day Burma were governed separately. From 1862 to 1923, the colonial administration, housed inRangoon'sSecretariat building, was headed by a chief commissioner (1862–1897) or a lieutenant-governor (1897–1923), who headed the administration, underneath thegovernor-general of India.[16]
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 ofUpper Burma and theShan 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).[17]
Consequently, from 1 May 1897 to 2 January 1923, the province was led by a lieutenant governor. In 1937, Burma was formally separated fromBritish 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 andShan States). From 1 January 1944 to 31 August 1946, a British military governor governed the colony. During theJapanese occupation of Burma from 1942 to 1945, a Japanese military commander headed the government, while the British-appointed governor headed the colony in exile.
Burma became independent in 1948. There was a president from 1948 to 1962, and then 1974 and 1988. Between 1962 and 1974 and between 1988 and 2011, Burma was headed by military regimes. The office of the president was restored in 2011.
The 1947 constitution was drafted byChan Htoon and was used from the country's independence in 1948 to 1962, when the constitution was suspended by the socialistUnion Revolutionary Council, led by military generalNe Win. The national government consisted of three branches:judicial,legislative andexecutive. The legislative branch was abicameral legislature called theUnion Parliament, consisting of two chambers, the 125-seatChamber of Nationalities (လူမျိုးစုလွှတ်တော်Lumyozu Hluttaw) and theChamber of Deputies (ပြည်သူ့လွှတ်တော်Pyithu Hluttaw), whose seat numbers were determined by the population size of respective constituencies. The 1947 constitution was largely based on the1946 Yugoslav Constitution, and several Burmese officials visited Yugoslavia.
Approved in a1973 referendum, the 1974 constitution was the second constitution to be written. It created aunicameral legislature called thePeople's Assembly (Pyithu Hluttaw), represented by members of theBurma Socialist Programme Party The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma. Each term was 4 years.Ne Win became the president at this time.
Upon taking power in September 1988, the military basedState Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) abolished the 1974 constitution.[18] The SLORC called a constitutional convention in 1993, but it was suspended in 1996 when theNational League for Democracy (NLD) boycotted it, calling it undemocratic. The constitutional convention was again called in 2004, but without theNLD. Myanmar remained without a constitution until 2008.
On 9 April 2008, the military government ofMyanmar (Burma) released its proposedconstitution for the country to be put to a vote in public referendum on 10 May 2008, as part of itsroadmap to democracy. The constitution is hailed by themilitary as heralding a return to democracy, but the opposition sees it as a tool for continuing military control of the country.
In spite of its earlier opposition to the 2008 constitution, the NLD participated in the2012 by-election for 46 seats and won a landslide victory, with Aung San Suu Kyi becoming a member of parliament, alongside 42 others from her party.
On 15 March 2016, the Assembly of the Union electedHtin Kyaw as the9th president of Myanmar. He resigned on 21 March 2018 andMyint Swe became acting president.
On 28 March 2018, the Assembly of the Union elected Win Myint as the 10th president of Myanmar.
| Union of Burma (1948–1962) | | |
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| Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1962–1988) | ||
| Union of Burma / Myanmar (1988–2011) | ||
| Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2011–present) | ||
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