His name is not on the ballot, and his photographs don¡¯t appear on campaign posters. But one man looms large over the general election under way in Myanmar: junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

The 69-year-old general has ruled the impoverished Southeast Asian nation since ousting Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi¡¯s elected government in a 2021 coup. That sparked a civil war of unprecedented violence, which has displaced millions and left much of Myanmar¡¯s borderlands in rebel hands.

The general said in a New Year address, as votes for the first phase of the three-stage election were being counted, that he intends to hand over ¡°state responsibilities¡± to the next government.

Suu Kyi¡¯s party, however, has been dissolved and other major opposition parties are not contesting the polls, which have been widely criticized as an exercise to keep the junta in power via proxies. The United Nations and Western rights groups have said the elections are neither ?free nor fair.

Reuters interviewed six people familiar with Min Aung Hlaing as well as two analysts of junta politics who offered insight into the thinking of the enigmatic general. Since the coup, he has only had limited diplomatic contact with many ?of Myanmar¡¯s regional ?neighbors and has rarely spoken to non-state-controlled media.

The junta chief and acting president is a rigid military leader, but also a political creature with a fine-tuned sense for managing the country¡¯s elites, according ?to three of the people and the two analysts.

Those qualities, the people said, have helped him keep power through battlefield defeats that have dented the military¡¯s prestige and hold over the country, exposing Min Aung Hlaing to criticism from supporters of the armed forces.

At least 16,600 civilians have died in conflict since the coup, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a coalition of independent international researchers.

Pulling back from absolute rule and sharing power through elections functions as ¡°an elite management strategy, diffusing responsibility and preserving regime cohesion,¡± said Naing Min Khant, program associate at the Institute for Strategy and Policy ¡ª Myanmar, a think tank in Thailand.

¡°He became the leader not only because of military ruthlessness but because of his subtle skills that help reduce all sorts of pressure around him,¡± said another of ?the people, a foreign former official who has met Min Aung Hlaing.

¡°I think if another person was put in that position, there may have been even more pressure on them.¡±

Myanmar¡¯s information ministry did not reply to a request for comment on Reuters¡¯ findings.

Min Aung Hlaing has handed some generals lucrative positions atop military-linked businesses, even as he occasionally detained other senior officers, including court marshaling one likely...