Paetongtarn elected as PM of Thailand

The leader of the ruling Pheu Thai Party, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was elected as the 31st prime minister of Thailand and is also the country's second woman in the post, the House of Representatives announced on Friday.

As Thailand's youngest prime minister, the 37-year-old Paetongtarn gained 319 votes in the election. There are 493 elected House representatives and a total of 489 MPs were present in the chamber on Friday.

Her success came two days after the Constitutional Court removed Srettha Thavisin from the prime minister's post, after finding him guilty of violating ethical standards due to the appointment of a former lawyer who was once jailed to his cabinet.

Both Paetongtarn and Srettha are from the Pheu Thai Party, which came in second at the 2023 election but formed a ruling coalition.

Paetongtarn is the youngest daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra was also prime minister from 2011 to 2014.

Sorawong Thienthong, Pheu Thai's secretary-general, nominated Paetongtarn as the sole prime ministerial candidate on Friday morning when Parliament President Wan Muhamad Noor Matha began the House meeting at 10 am.

Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of the Bhumjaithai Party, the coalition's second-largest group, said that to ensure continuity in governance, coalition parties are prepared to collaborate with and support Paetongtarn in her bid for the premiership.

Paetongtarn said she would continue with the government's policies. "The country has to move ahead. We are determined, together and we will push the country forward," Paetongtarn told The Nation after winning Pheu Thai's nomination.

"She will be under scrutiny. Also, she will be under a lot of pressure and have to rely on her father," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, said in an interview with The Nation.

Paetongtarn spent her childhood steeped in the country's tumultuous politics. Educated at elite schools in Thailand and then going to university in the United Kingdom, she spent some years working at the Shinawatra family's Rende hotel group, where her husband serves as deputy chief investment officer.

Last October, after Pheu Thai navigated a circuitous route to form government, Paetongtarn was anointed the party's leader. She reaffirmed that Pheu Thai will continue with its important mission in improving people's livelihoods.

Despite being relatively new to politics, a person from the young generation like Paetongtarn will be a strength instead of a hindrance, Kriengkrai Thiennukul, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries, said.

He believes that she will be a bridge between the new and old generations. "Most policies put forward by the government will continue as planned," he said.

China congratulates Paetongtarn on her election as Thai prime minister, and believes that the Thai people will make greater achievements on the development path in line with their own national conditions, China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The statement added that China is willing to further work with Thailand to build a China-Thailand community with a shared future.

yangwanli@chinadaily.com.cn