Myanmar's new parliament on Wednesday elected U Mann Win Khaing Than as speaker of the House of Nationalities (upper house) and U Aye Tha Aung as deputy speaker.
The election took place at the first session of the House two days after the start of the session of the House of Representatives (lower house).
U Mann Win Khaing Than from the National League for Democracy (NLD), who is a retired legal officer, was elected to the upper house from Kayin state constituency, while U Aye Tha Aung from the Arakan National Party is a Rakhine ethnic parliament representative.
A total of 223 MPs attended the first session chaired by U Zone Lal Htan of the NLD. It is part of the new parliament's new session after the expiry of the previous term of the legislative body. In the country's general election held on Nov. 8, 2015, the NLD, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the absolute majority of the parliamentary seats.
On Monday, new parliament started its first session with U Win Myint of the NLD elected as speaker of the lower house and U Ti Khun Myat of the Union Solidarity and Development Party as deputy speaker. The first session of the Region or State Parliaments is set to begin next Monday. Out of a total of 1,150 parliamentary seats at Myanmar's three levels of parliament, the NLD takes 886 or 77 percent, including 255 or 79 percent in the lower house, 135 or 80 percent in the upper house and 496 or 75.7 percent in the Region or State Parliaments, in addition to 17 ethnic representatives to the Region or State Parliaments.
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