Mon State Chief Minister U Min Min Oo submitted a letter of resignation to President Htin Kyaw yesterday, announced Myint Than Win, director of Mon State Government Office.
U Min Min Ooo was elected to the Mon State parliament in the 2015 general election and subsequently elected as deputy speaker of the state parliament. He resigned as deputy speaker when the NLD chose him to be chief minister.
He is the first government leader to resign since the NLD took control of the government in 2015. In addition to resigning from his post as chief minister, he also resigned as state minister for municipal development and construction, and he also cancelled his membership in the NLD.
The moves did not come with much explanation from the chief minister.
“I don’t want to say why I have decided to resign. I want to stay away from [the NLD]. I will tell the media the reason after the president appoints a new chief minister,” he told the Myanmar Times.
The future of U Min Min Oo’s role as chief minister had been uncertain since November 5, 2016, when he said at an NLD state branch meeting in Mawlamyine that he hoped to resign. He did not explain the comment, leaving other party members startled.
He has also been the subject of an internal NLD investigation, which was launched after hundreds of his constituents accused him of being an ineffectual leader.
Mon State MPs have said U Min Min Oo was frequently absent from parliament without asking for leave, or he requested leave even though his schedule was empty.
He has also been accused of being too close to the Mon State business community, perhaps because of his own business activities; he owns a rubber plantation and a mohinga factory. No evidence of corruption has emerged.
However, the suspicion has been fueled by the chief minister’s attempts to revive unpopular projects that had been initiated by the previous Mon State government and later rejected by the Thein Sein administration.
U Aung Naing Oo, the deputy speaker of the Mon State Hluttaw, told Frontier in January that U Min Min Oo sought to resume these projects to appease “crony” businesspeople in Mon State.
NLD party leaders in Mon State have called for his resignation since January.
U Min Min Oo is expected to retain his seat in the Mon State parliament representing Bilin Township.
The resignation will not be final until President Htin Kyaw formally accepts it.
The NLD has nominated Dr. Aye Zan, a Mon State MP from Kyaikto, to take the post chief minister. He currently chairs the Financial Planning and Economic Committee and the Natural Resources Affairs Committee in the Mon State parliament.
It is not known yet whether Dr. Aye Zan will also take the posts as minister for municipal development and construction.
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