Shinawatra Clan Heiress Appointed Prime Minister to Lead Thailand

Photo: Chanakarn Laosarakham Agence France-Presse Thailand's new Prime Minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, during a press conference in Bangkok on August 16, 2024, following her appointment as head of the country by Thai lawmakers.

Agence France-Presse to Bangkok

Published yesterday at 8:22 a.m. Updated yesterday at 8:36 a.m.

• Asia

Heir to Thailand's most powerful political dynasty, Paetongtarn Shinawatra became prime minister on Friday at just 37 years old.

“I decided it was time to do something for the country and the party,” she said after the vote.

Daughter of billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, Paetongtarn was the sole candidate in the majority coalition led by her Pheu Thai party when MPs voted to elect the head of government.

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She is the third Thai leader to bear the name Shinawatra, after her father Thaksin (2001-2006) and his aunt Yingluck (2011-2014), both overthrown in a coup d'état.

His surname is inseparable from the tensions that have divided the kingdom for more than two decades, between conservative elites and voters eager for change.

Thaksin, ultra-popular in the 2000s, has long been the bête noire of the monarchy and the army, who rejected his policies, which they considered populist and profiteering.

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But for the past year, the family party, Pheu Thai, has governed within a coalition including pro-army parties, to block the reformist party Move Forward, surprise winner of the legislative elections and since dissolved.

Revealed to the general public on this occasion, she needed all the votes in the coalition to become prime minister.

Unusually, during the campaign for the May 2023 elections, she gave birth to her second child, a boy whom she presented as her “secret power” in view of her first electoral appointment.

In charge of “soft power”

Although she was Pheu Thai’s leading figure during the campaign, her party nominated Srettha Thavisin, a property developer with a consensus profile, for the post of prime minister at the time.

During Srettha’s term, dismissed by the courts on Wednesday, Paetongtarn promoted Thailand’s “soft power” within a government committee, away from sensitive issues, while holding the party leadership.

Paetongtarn is the third child of Thaksin, a former police officer who made his fortune in telecoms and was twice elected prime minister, in 2001 and 2005, before being ousted in a coup in 2006.

Popular among rural communities who have benefited from his welfare policies, he returned to Thailand last year after 15 years in self-imposed exile to escape what he said were politically motivated corruption convictions.

His daughter grew up in Bangkok and studied hospitality in the UK.

In 2019, she married an airline pilot at two lavish receptions in the Thai capital and Hong Kong.

She is very active on social media, with more than 600,000 followers on Instagram, where she shares photos of her family life and social activities.

Often dressed in designer clothes, or in red, the party's colour, she wants to appeal to the new generation, while maintaining a connection with older voters loyal to her father.

Her charisma and clever remarks during the campaign had also surprised some who saw her as nothing more than a puppet of Thaksin.