Myanmar's union parliament sets date for presidential run

Myanmar's union parliament on Monday announced March 17 as the date for three groups of the union parliament representatives to nominate their respective candidates for the presidential run.

The three candidates are to be nominated respectively from the group of elected house of representatives (Lower House), the group of elected house of nationalities (Upper House) and the group from military-nominated representatives, Xinhua news agency reported.

The candidate who wins the most number of votes will be the president, while the remaining two will be vice presidents.

The nomination list will be forwarded to the chairman of the union parliament.

The newly-elected union parliament started its first session in capital Nay Pyi Taw earlier on Monday, 10 days after the expiry of the previous term of the parliament.

The summon for the first session of the new union parliament came nearly three months after the end of the general election on November 8, 2015, in which the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won an absolute majority of the parliamentary seats.

Attending the first union parliament session, chaired by U Mann Win Khaing Than who is also speaker of the House of Nationalities (Upper House), were a total of 648 members of the parliament.