Bangkok’s prince approved of Paetongtarn Shinawatra as prime minister on Sunday, evoking her as prime minister two days after her election, allowing her to form a government in the upcoming weeks.
Paetongtarn, 37, becomes Thailand’s youngest prime minister just weeks after alliance Srettha Thavisin was dismissed as leading by the Constitutional Court, a court key to Thailand’s two years of continuous political upheaval.
In a home ballot on Friday, Paetongtarn, the daughter of polarizing former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, won by nearly two-thirds to be Thailand’s following female prime minister and the second Shinawatra to succeed Thaksin and her uncle Yingluck Shinawatra.
The assent by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, a politeness, was read out by House of Representatives Secretary Apat Sukhanand at a meeting in Bangkok on Sunday.
Before giving a brief statement thanking the prince and the people’s representatives for endorsing her as prime minister, Paetongtarn knelted in tribute to a photograph of the monarch. He was dressed in formal dress.
” As head of the executive branch, I will complete my work together with the senators with an empty spirit”, she said. ” I will talk to everyone’s ideas so that we can move the country forwards with stability,” she said.
Paetongtarn, who has not served in government previously, faces challenges on multiple fronts, with the economy floundering and the popularity of her Pheu Thai party dwindling, having yet to deliver on its flagship digital wallet cash handout programme worth 500 billion baht ($ 15 billion ).
After accepting the imperial support, Paetongtarn hugged her parents Thaksin and other family members.
In her first press event, Paetongtarn said she will remain with all plans of her father Srettha, including “major” economic stimulus and reformation, tackling illegal drugs, improving the government’s universal healthcare system and promoting gender diversity.
She stated that the government would continue to pursue” study and listen to more options” to ensure the plan is fiscally responsible.
” The goal is to stimulate the economy so this purpose remains”, Paetongtarn said.
The prime minister said she wo n’t seek his guidance but that she has no intention of appointing her father Thaksin to any government positions.
Information of her government’s policies, according to Paetongtarn, will be presented to congress next month.
After only a year in office, Srettha’s ouster as her successor demonstrates the potential dangers facing Paetongtarn, with Thailand thrown into a stormy period of coups and court decisions that have splintered social events and displaced several governments and prime ministers.
The tycoon Shinawatra family, whose once invincible populist juggernaut lost its primary election defeat in more than 20 years last year and had to reach a deal with its bitter military foes to form a government, is also in danger.
The current upheaval hints at a collapse in a fragile truce between Thaksin and his rivals in the royalist establishment, which had allowed the tycoon’s serious return from 15 years of self-exile in 2023 and ally Srettha to be premier the same day.
The anti-establishment Move Forward Party, the winner of the 2023 election, was disbanded more than a week ago because of a court’s ruling that the court feared would undermine the constitutional monarchy.
The hugely popular opposition, Pheu Thai’s biggest challenger, has since regrouped under a new vehicle, the People’s Party.
