page_title: U Nu
section_title: Parliamentary era
hierarchical_section_title: U Nu / Political life / Parliamentary era
caption_attribution_description: English: Burmese Prime Minister Thakin Nu (center) with Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev (far left with floral lei) and Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin (right with floral lei) in Rangoon, Burma.
context_page_description: Nu, known honorifically as U Nu or Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman, politician, nationalist, and political figure of the 20th century. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the provisions of the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma, from 4 January 1948 to 12 June 1956, again from 28 February 1957 to 28 October 1958, and finally from 4 April 1960 to 2 March 1962.
context_section_description: Burma gained independence from Britain on 4 January 1948. U Nu became the chairman of the Old Myoma Students Association in Yangon. He became the first Prime Minister of independent Burma, and he had to deal with armed rebellion. The rebels included various ethnic groups, White Flag and Red Flag communist factions, and some regiments in the Army. Yet another challenge was the exiled Kuomintang (KMT).  After being chased out of (Mainland) China by the victorious Communists, they had established bases in eastern Burma, and it took several years in the early 1950s to drive them out. A democratic system was instituted and parliamentary elections were held several times. Throughout the 1950s, U Nu oversaw the implementation of the Pyidawtha Plan, a national economic development plan to establish an industrial welfare state in Burma.
  He voluntarily relinquished the Prime Ministerial position in 1956. He was one of the leaders of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) from 1942 to 1963. AFPFL member Ba Swe served as Prime Minister from June 1956 to June 1957. In 1955, the University of Belgrade (Yugoslavia) awarded him an honorary doctorate.
  On 26 September 1958, he asked the Army Chief of Staff General Ne Win to take over as a "caretaker government", and Ne Win was sworn in as Prime Minister on 27 October 1958. In the February 1960 general election, U Nu's Clean faction of the AFPFL won in a landslide victory over the Stable faction led by U Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein. U Nu returned to power forming the Pyidaungzu (Union) government on 4 April 1960. The Clean AFPFL was subsequently renamed the Union Party.
  U Thant had been Secretary to the Prime Minister U Nu before he was appointed Burmese Ambassador to the United Nations in 1957. U Thant became the third UN Secretary-General in 1961.
caption: U Nu with Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev (far left with floral lei) and Nikolai Bulganin (right with floral lei) in Rangoon, December 1955
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