Bangkok: Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of Thai political heavyweight Thaksin Shinawatra, won the parliamentary vote to become Thailands' youngest Prime Minister on Friday, days after her predecessor Srettha Thavisin was removed from office over an ethics code violation for appointing a minister who had served time in prison. She earlier passed the required threshold of 51 per cent votes required to win the backing of the Thai Parliament.
Paetongtarn, 37, had been expected to receive parliamentary approval. The daughter of the country's most divisive but enduring politician, she will take the office her father and aunt once occupied, underlining her family's central place in Thai politics. She will also become the second female leader of the country after Yingluck Shinawatra.
Paetongtarn, the youngest of Thaksin Shinawatra's three children, is currently the leader of the Pheu Thai party, which came second in 2023's election but cobbled together a ruling coalition after the vote-winner was blocked by military-backed lawmakers. She was thrust into the limelight after Thavisin was dismissed from office by the Constitutional Court.
The same court last week dissolved the progressive and main opposition Move Forward party, which won last year's general election but was blocked from power, saying it violated the Constitution by proposing an amendment to a law against defaming the country's royal family. The party has already regrouped as the People's Party.
Challenges for Paetongtarn Shinawatra
One of the challenges facing Paetongtarn is overcoming a recurring theme of her family, when the governments led by her father and aunt were toppled by the military in 2006 and 2014 respectively. Thaksin is one of Thailand's most popular but divisive political figures whose popularity and influence are a factor behind the political support for Paetongtarn.
Thaksin returned to Thailand last year after years in exile in what was interpreted as part of a political bargain between Pheu Thai and their longstanding rivals in the conservative establishment to stop the Move Forward Party from forming a government.
When Paetongtarn was on the campaign trail for Pheu Thai, she acknowledged her family ties but insisted she was not just her father's proxy. “It's not the shadow of my dad. I am my dad's daughter, always and forever, but I have my own decisions,” she said. Paetongtarn also has never held an elected government position and has no administrative experience.
"She will be under scrutiny. She will be under a lot of pressure," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University. "She will have to rely on her father."
Who is Paetongtarn Shinawatra?
Paetongtarn spent her childhood steeped in the country's tumultuous politics as an ambitious Thaksin charted a meteoritic rise to wealth and then launched the Thai Rak Thai Party in 1998. Thaksin found his way to the premiership by 2001, and expanded spending on healthcare, rural development and farming subsidies - dubbed "Thaksinomics" for the poor.
Paetongtarn attended Bangkok's elite Chulalongkorn University after her father was removed from power in the 2006 military coup, where she was accused of cheating. She is now married and has two children. She was appointed the party's leader in October last year when the Pheu Thai navigated a circuitous route to forming the government.
"Pheu Thai will continue with its important mission in improving people's livelihood," she declared before hundreds of party members. However in May, amid bickering between Srettha's administration and the Bank of Thailand over interest rates, she said the central bank's independence was an "obstacle" in resolving economic problems, drawing criticism.
(with inputs from agencies)
