State counselor of Aung San Suu Kyi

Suu Kyi initially held four ministerial posts in the new government—minister of energy, minister of education, foreign minister, and minister in the president’s office—but within a week had given up the first two positions. She was then named state counselor, a position newly created by the legislature and signed into law by Htin Kyaw; the post was similar to that of prime minister and potentially more powerful than the president. The creation of the state counselor role for Suu Kyi rankled the military, whose legislative members denounced the bill that provided for the new position as being unconstitutional and refused to take part in the vote on the bill.

In her new role, Suu Kyi focused on finding peace with the country’s many ethnic armed organizations, of which 20 or so were engaged in active insurgencies. In contrast with some success experienced on that front, she and her administration faced widespread international condemnation over the treatment of the Muslim Rohingya people of Myanmar’s Rakhine state. After some attacks by Rohingya militants on security installations in 2016 and 2017, the military and police embarked on a brutal campaign against the entire group, allegedly committing human rights abuses and causing a large percentage of the population to flee the country. Given Suu Kyi’s history as a champion of human rights and democracy, sharp criticism was directed at her in particular for initially seeming to ignore the crisis and, when she did address it, not denouncing the actions of the security forces or intervening. In protest of her inaction regarding the plight of the Rohingya, several organizations revoked human rights-related honours and awards previously bestowed upon her.

The nascent administration was hit with a bit of upheaval in March 2018 when Htin Kyaw resigned unexpectedly. His successor, NLD stalwart Win Myint, was also a longtime associate of Suu Kyi, and it was expected that the established division of power between the presidency and Suu Kyi’s state counselor position would continue unchanged.

Removal from power

Although Suu Kyi’s reputation had suffered abroad, at home she and the NLD still retained a good amount of support. In the November 8, 2020, parliamentary elections, the NLD won a commanding majority of seats in both legislative chambers and was poised to form the next government. Its victory was clouded, though, as the polls had been canceled in some sections of the country because of insecurity, which disenfranchised ethnic minority voters in those areas. The military and its aligned party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), decried the results as being fraudulent and appealed to the electoral commission, which dismissed their claims.

The newly elected parliament was due to hold its first session on February 1, 2021, but, in the early hours of that day, the military seized power in a coup d’etat. Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders were detained by the military, which allowed Vice Pres. Myint Swe (a former general) to become acting president. Claiming that the unresolved election complaints were a threat to the country’s sovereignty, he invoked clauses 417 and 418 of the constitution, which provided for the military to declare a one-year state of emergency and take over administration of the government. Two days later the police announced that they had filed charges against Suu Kyi with regards to the presence of illegally imported walkie-talkie radios in her home. During her trial, which began in a secretive manner on February 16, it was revealed that she had also been charged with having violated the country’s natural disaster management law by interacting with a crowd during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, work strikes and other acts of civil disobedience ensued in the weeks following the coup, as did large-scale protests calling for her release.

Writings

Aung San Suu Kyi’s published works included Freedom from Fear, and Other Writings, 2nd ed. (1995; reissued 2010), and Letters from Burma (1997; reissued 2010).