Recognition by the king on Sunday has paved the way for 37-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra to become Thailand’s youngest prime minister, Reuters reports. The news agency says she was voted into the top spot by parliament just a day after entering the political fray to form a government amid a seemingly endless power struggle among warring elites.
Paetongtarn is the third member of the billionaire Shinawatra family to serve as prime minister and the second woman, following her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra. Her father Thaksin, the 75-year-old figurehead of the Pheu Thai party and considered Thailand’s most influential and polarising politician, fled the country in 2006 to avoid jail after the military ousted his government. Five years and six prime ministers later, Yingluck became prime minister only to suffer the same fate, ousted in 2014 after nearly three years in office.
Paetongtarn, who won easily with nearly two-thirds of the house voting for her, now faces “a baptism by fire” as the untested politician was voted in just two days after ally Srettha Thavisin was forced out of the job by judicial fiat.
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“The Shinawatras’ gambit here is risky,” Nattabhorn Buamahakul, managing partner at government affairs consultancy, Vero Advocacy, told Reuters. Thaksin’s willingness to elevate his daughter caught many analysts by surprise given her complete lack of experience and the turmoil that has consumed Thai politics for years.
Once considered unstoppable, the family suffered its first political defeat in over two decades last year, forcing it to deal with enemies in the military to form a government. Then Srettha was removed after less than a year in office. Paetongtarn now faces a floundering economy and an increasingly popular rival party as her own Pheu Thai party loses ground having yet to deliver on its flagship 500-billion-baht (US$14.25 billion) cash handout programme.
The same court that dismissed Srettha over a cabinet appointment also dissolved Pheu Thai’s biggest challenger, the anti-establishment Move Forward Party, which quickly reformed as the People’s Party. Such moves are common in Thailand; Pheu Thai, for example, is the third incarnation of a party dissolved twice by previous courts.
