NAY PYI TAW — U Win Htein’s health is improving after the senior member of the National League for Democracy was hospitalised suddenly on Tuesday night.
The party central executive committee member and longtime confidante of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to leave the 1000-bed Nay Pyi Taw Hospital by Saturday, contrary widely spread rumours of his death that circulated on Facebook on Wednesday.
After seeing the rumours, Dr Zaw Myint Maung, an NLD MP in the Mandalay Region parliament, hurried to the hospital only to find U Win Htein sleeping soundly with the help of his usual oxygen breathing aid, which the 74-year-old has been using in recent years as a result of a chronic heart condition.
“Some people asked, ‘Are you doing yatra?’” NLD lawmaker U Kyaw Thiha (Pyithu, Pyin Oo Lwin) told Frontier, referring to the practice of consulting astrologers to avoid misfortune, long alleged to have been a favoured practice of former military leaders. “No, we didn’t. Neither U Win Htein nor anyone in the NLD is doing such a thing.”
U Win Htein told Frontier he was “doing OK” and that his condition was improving quickly.
Support more independent journalism like this. Sign up to be a Frontier member.
In 2014, while still a representative for Meiktila in the Pyithu Hluttaw, U Win Htein required medical attention after collapsing in parliament.
