Min Aung Hlaing

Biography

Min Aung Hlaing was born in Minbu in 1956. After school in Rangoon he studied law at the Rangoon Arts and Science University in 1973-74, then entered the Defence Services Academy on his third attempt, graduating with its 19th intake in 1977. He rose slowly through infantry and staff posts, served as an intelligence officer against the Communist Party of Burma and in operations against the Karen National Union, and later became rector of the academy.

In March 2011, as the junta handed power to a nominally civilian government, he became commander-in-chief of Defence Services, and he was made senior general in 2013. After Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the 2015 election he worked to protect the army's political role. A UN fact-finding mission concluded that forces under his command carried out genocidal atrocities against the Rohingya, and the ICC prosecutor sought a warrant for his arrest in 2024.

After the NLD's landslide in the 2020 election he made unfounded claims of fraud, and on 1 February 2021 he seized power, detaining the elected leadership. He ruled as chairman of the State Administration Council and from August 2021 as prime minister, ordering a crackdown on mass protests that grew into a civil war, and ordering the execution of pro-democracy activists, the first use of the death penalty in decades.

The junta staged a tightly controlled general election in 2025-26 that the military-backed USDP won. Min Aung Hlaing retired from the army on 30 March 2026, was elected president by parliament on 3 April and took office on 10 April 2026.