MYANMAR MONK BACKS VOTE

WIRATHU HOPES THE MILITARY, EMBOLDENED BY THE POLL, WILL HELP PROMOTE HIS HARDLINE BUDDHIST NATIONALISM

- STORY: KHINE LIN KYAW / BLOOMBERG

This file photo taken on June 24, 2013 shows the July 1 issue of 'Time' magazine carrying a picture of Myanmar monk Wirathu on its cover.

By 2017, Myanmar’s military had allegedly killed thousands of Muslim Rohingya, a massacre now being pursued as genocide at the International Court of Justice.

A central figure accused of fanning the violence is one of the country’s most powerful monks, once dubbed the “Face of Buddhist Terror” on the cover of Time magazine.

That monk, known as Wirathu, now awaits an election outcome the military hopes will legitimise its rule, and which he expects will help promote his hard-line Buddhist nationalism.

“We have a lot of expectations for the new government,” he said on Friday inside his monastery near the heart of Mandalay, dressed in a saffron robe worn by the Southeast Asian nation’s Buddhist clergy.

“We want them to be like a phoenix reborn — rising from the ashes.”

That optimism contrasts sharply with a country mired in civil war, with as many as 90,000 people killed in the fighting since the coup and an economy that collapsed under the weight of sanctions after the 2021 coup against the government of Aung San Suu Kyi.