March 30 (Reuters): Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar's military chief who led a ​coup in 2021, stepped down on Monday to stand as president in a parliamentary vote following the first polls in the Asian nation since the takeover that triggered a civil war.

The 69-year-old general, who had commanded Myanmar's armed forces since 2011, was one of two people named as vice-presidential candidates by lawmakers from the country's newly convened lower house of parliament.

The country's upper house will also nominate a vice-presidential candidate, with both houses to select a president from the ​three in a later vote. A date for that vote has not been announced.

"Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is proposed as a ​vice-presidential candidate," Kyaw Kyaw Htay, a lawmaker from a military-aligned party, said on the floor of the lower house ⁠of parliament, according to a live broadcast of proceedings on state media.

The move follows a controversial election held amid raging conflict in December and ​January, won by the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party but widely derided as a sham by the United Nations and many Western countries.

Photo from Reuters