NAYPYITAW, 04 July (TON): Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing’s July 3 birthday could have signified the end of the widely despised junta leader’s inglorious military career.

On Saturday he turned 65: the age that he had himself once declared as that of mandatory retirement for the role of military commander-in-chief.

Five months ahead of the day, he gifted himself an indefinitely extended tenure when he removed this age limit after overthrowing the country’s elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in a coup on February 1.

Min Aung Hlaing deposed the Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian administration over the allegation—for which no credible evidence has surfaced—that fraud was committed in the November 2020 general election. The NLD, her party, won the vast majority of seats. 

Prior to the coup, the Union Election Commission, which has since been dismantled, had dismissed the military’s claims that electoral fraud had taken place.

Min Aung Hlaing has attempted to justify his takeover of government as being in line with the military-drafted 2008 Constitution. The general public and the interim National Unity Government, made up of cabinet members appointed by the ousted elected lawmakers, have declared the charter void. 

Warnings of an impending coup were apparent even before elections were held last year, when the army began questioning the credibility of the upcoming poll.