Description: The leader of Myanmar’s ruling military junta, General Min Aung Hlaing, resigned as the chief of the military force and is expected to become the country’s next president. Myanmar held disputed elections earlier this year in one third of its cities as the military was estimated to currently control just 21% of the country’s territory. Hlaing’s nomination as the country’s president arrives in the midst of intensified infighting between resistance and ethnic anti – government groups in the country, where territorial control is dispersed between a dozen militias vying for independence and secession from the central government. Recent estimates project that over 96 thousand people were killed so far in the civil war, while 3.6 million were forced to flee the country and additional 15 million are currently living in dire humanitarian conditions.
Impact: The complex armed confliction, ethnic divisions and independent agendas indicate that Myanmar’s civil war would persist in the long – term. Hlaing’s self-nomination as Myanmar’s president serves as a unilateral political accreditation of the junta’s governing stance in the country despite massive territorial losses to rebel groups in recent months. The civil war has partitioned the country into smaller territories controlled by independent ethnic and other resistance armed groups which have so far successfully repelled the junta from controlling much of the border regions. China, as the main foreign influential factor in the war, is balancing between supporting and financing the junta and much of the larger groups, which effectively puts Beijing in charge of the outcome of the conflict. Due to the divergence of core interests between the anti – government forces, cohesion seems like a distant prospect for the time being, which in turn gives the military junta time to mobilize and retake crucial territories.