Two days after the removal of Srettha Thavisin as PM, Thailand's Parliament has elected Paetongtarn Shinawatra -- youngest daughter of the divisive former leader Thaksin Shinawatra -- as the country's Prime Minister.
Paetongtarn becomes the third leader of the country from the Shinawatra family after her father and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra. She also became the second female prime minister of Thailand after her aunt and the youngest leader at the age of 37.
Though Paetongtarn is a leader of the ruling Pheu Thai party, she was not an elected lawmarker, which is also not a requirement for her to be a candidate for Prime Minister. She was the only nominee and bagged a majority of votes in the Parliament.
Srettha Thavisin was removed from the Prime Minister's post after the Thai Constitutional Court found him guilty of violating the constitution.
Notably, Thaksin is one of the most popular but divisive political figures in Thailand. He was ousted from power by a military coup in 2006. It was only last year, that he returned from exile.
Thaksin is widely seen as the de factor leader of Pheu Thai, the latest in a string parties linked to him. His residual influence is one of the major reasons behind the political support for Paetongtarn.
Paetongtarn made her public entry into politics in 2021 when the Pheu Thai party announced that she would lead an inclusion advisory committee. In 2023, she was appointed as the leader of the party, following which she was named as one of its three prime ministerial candidates.
During the campaign trail for Pheu Thai, Paetongtarn had acknowledged her family ties and clarified that 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 told a reporter.
Notably, a candidate needs just a majority from the Lower House, or at least 247 votes. The current 11 party-coalition led by Pheu Thai now has 314 lawmarkers in the lower house and they have declared unanimous support for Paetongtarn.
Napon Jatusripitak, a political science researcher at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said that the coalition under the leadership of Paetongtarn could strengthen their unity because she possesses something that Srettha Thavisin does not - a direct line to her powerful father who has the final say.
“In a strange way, it creates a clear chain of command and curbs factionalism,” he said. “Paetongtarn will be given clear jurisdictions on where she can exercise her own agency and where it is a matter between her father and the coalition members," he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.
