Amid transition, Myanmar's Senior General Min Aung Hlaing emerges from the shadows

Like many of his generation, the head of Myanmar’s powerful military is a recent but enthusiastic convert to Facebook. On his profile background picture, the commander-in-chief gives a “thumbs up” from the cockpit of an aeroplane. Posts show him celebrating new year in a traditional boar tusk headdress and visiting wounded soldiers.

It’s a far cry from just a few years ago, when the only glimpse into the work of the military top command came in turgid reports from state media, and offers a daily reminder that the changes sweeping the Southeast Asian nation have reached even the secretive generals who ruled for almost 50 years until 2011.

As he cements his position as de facto No. 2 on Myanmar’s post-election political scene, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has transformed himself from taciturn soldier into a politician, public figure and statesman, say diplomats in Yangon.

“It was like speaking to a politician,” said one senior Western diplomat of a recent meeting. “Not a soldier.”

People who know him say he is keen to show the army – still loathed by many after decades of iron-fisted junta-rule – is a positive force in the transition to democracy, but also that he is in no hurry for the military to step back from politics.

Until Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a resounding victory in the first nationwide democratic election for 25 years in November, Min Aung Hlaing had never had a one-on-one meeting with the Nobel peace laureate.