His name was ?not on the ballot, neither did his photographs appear on campaign posters. But one man loomed large over the general election held in Myanmar in December and January: junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

On Friday, the 69-year-old general who has ruled the impoverished Southeast Asian nation since ousting Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi¡¯s elected government in a 2021 coup, was elected president in a parliamentary vote.

The carefully engineered transition came in the midst of a civil war triggered by the coup, which has displaced millions and left swathes of Myanmar¡¯s borderlands in rebel hands.

Min Aung Hlaing¡¯s shift from junta chief to the head of an administration with a civilian veneer comes after an election that analysts said was designed by the military to maintain the ruling generals¡¯ hold on power.

With Suu Kyi¡¯s party ?dissolved and other major opposition parties not contesting, the United Nations and Western rights groups deemed the elections neither free nor fair ¡ª and the polls were eventually swept by the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Since the coup, Min Aung Hlaing ?has only ?had limited diplomatic contact with many of Myanmar¡¯s regional neighbors and has rarely spoken to non-state-controlled media.

Reporters interviewed six people familiar with him as well as two analysts of junta politics who ?offered insight into the thinking of the enigmatic general.

Myanmar¡¯s new 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.

Nearly 93,000 people 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 ?the?findings.

Min Aung Hlaing has handed some generals lucrative positions atop military-linked ?businesses, even...