The Thai parliament today elected the youngest prime minister in Thailand’s history, 37-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, just one day after this heir of a wealthy family emerged in the spotlight amid a power struggle that shows no signs of abating among the country’s elites.
The daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, the sole candidate for the premiership, was elected by parliament and is now facing a baptism of fire, just two days after her ally, Srettha Thavisin, was ousted from the prime minister’s position by the judiciary, which has played a central role in the two decades of turmoil that the country has faced intermittently.
With Paetongtarn, the legacy and political future of the billionaire Shinawatra family is at stake, as they faced their first electoral defeat in over two decades last year and had to strike a deal with their enemies in the armed forces to form a government.
Paetongtarn will become the second female prime minister and the third member of the Shinawatra family to take on the premiership, following her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra, and her father, Thaksin, the most polarizing and influential politician in the country.
Paetongtarn won comfortably with 319 votes or nearly two-thirds of the parliament. She was not present in the parliament and watched the voting from her party’s headquarters, Pheu Thai.
Her first public comment on her victory was to post a photo of her meal – chicken with rice – on Instagram with the caption: “The first meal after I heard the voting”.
Paetongtarn has never been a member of the government, and the decision to enter the fray is a gamble for Pheu Thai and the 75-year-old Thaksin, notes Reuters.
She will face challenges on many fronts, with the economy struggling, competition from a rival party intensifying, and Pheu Thai’s popularity declining, while also needing to implement her central program to distribute cash to the population of 500 billion baht ($14.25 billion).
“The Shinawatra move is risky,” says Natabhorn Buama Hakul of the consultancy Vero Advocacy.
“It puts Thaksin’s daughter in the crosshairs and puts her in a vulnerable position.”