Min Aung Hlaing on Friday won a parliamentary vote to become president of Myanmar, formalising his hold on power five years after toppling an elected government.
The 69-year-old general led the 2021 coup against Aung San Suu Kyi's administration, placing her under arrest and triggering mass protests that evolved into a nationwide armed resistance.
The transition from top general to civilian president follows a lopsided election in December and January that was won in a landslide by an army-backed party and derided by critics and Western governments as a sham to perpetuate military rule behind a veneer of democracy.
In a live broadcast of the vote count in a parliament dominated by the election-winning Union Solidarity and Development Party and the military's quota of appointed armed forces legislators, former commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing comfortably passed the threshold required to win the presidential vote.
'Dreams Becoming Reality'
Min Aung Hlaing's ascent to the presidency - a position that analysts say he has long sought - followed a major reshuffle in the leadership of Myanmar's armed forces, which he had led since 2011.
On Monday, as he was nominated in parliament as a presidential candidate, Min Aung Hlaing anointed Ye Win Oo, a former intelligence chief seen as fiercely loyal to the general, as his successor to lead the military.
The military handover and Min Aung Hlaing's rise to the presidency are seen by analysts as a strategic pivot to consolidate his power as head of a nominally civilian government and earn international legitimacy, while protecting the interests of an armed forces that has run the country directly for five of the past six decades.
Civil War Persists
Still, the civil war that has wrecked Myanmar for much of the last five years is raging, with some anti-junta groups - including those comprising remnants of Suu Kyi's party and longstanding ethnic minority armies - forming a new combined front this week to take on the military.
Resistance groups could face intensified military pressure as well as increased scrutiny from neighbouring countries that may seek to bolster their relationship with Min Aung Hlaing's new administration, analysts say.
'Amidst global oil and fuel shortages and economic crises, maintaining organisational stability could become difficult,' analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said of the opposition.
(With inputs from Reuters)