Myanmar's union parliament sets March 17 for presidential run

Myanmar's union parliament on Monday announced March 17 as the date for three groups of the union parliament representatives to nominate their respective candidates for presidential run.

The three candidates are to be nominated respectively from the group of elected house of representatives (Lower House), the group of elected house of nationalities (Upper House) and the group from military-nominated representatives.

The candidate who wins the most number of votes will be the president, while the remaining two be vice presidents.

The nomination list will be forwarded to the chairman of the union parliament.

The newly-elected union parliament started its first session in Nay Pyi Taw on Monday morning, 10 days after the expiry of the previous term of the parliament.

The summon for the first session of the new union parliament came nearly three months after the end of the general election on Nov. 8, 2015, in which the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the absolute majority of the parliamentary seats.

Attending the first union parliament session, chaired by U Mann Win Khaing Than of the National League for Democracy (NLD) who is also speaker of the House of Nationalities (Upper House), were a total of 648 members of the Union Parliament.

Meanwhile, the new parliaments have already started their first sessions with the House of Representatives (Lower House), in which U Win Myint of the NLD was elected as speaker of the House of Representatives and U Ti Khun Myat of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) as deputy speaker of the House, while U Mann Win Khaing Than of the National League for Democracy (NLD) as speaker of the House of Nationalities (Upper House) and U Aye Tha Aung of the Arakan National Party (ANP) as deputy speaker of the House. Enditem