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BANGKOK: Thailand’s Pheu Thai party announced on Thursday it has chosen Padangdan Shinawatra, 37, daughter of billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as its candidate for prime minister, a day after a court removed the incumbent premier over an ethics case.
“We have decided to nominate Padangdan Shinawatra,” party secretary-general Sorawong Theanthong told a news conference in Bangkok.
Lawmakers will vote in parliament on Friday on whether to approve Pattondan as prime minister.
“We believe that the party and the Alliance will lead our country and help Thailand cope with the economic crisis,” Patongdan said after the statement.
Thailand plunged into new political uncertainty on Wednesday when the Constitutional Court dismissed Prime Minister Srithawisin from office after ruling that he had violated rules by appointing a cabinet minister with a criminal past.
Pheu Thai – the electoral vehicle of former Manchester City owner Thaksin Shinawatra – is the largest member of a ruling coalition of 11 parties, including royalist and pro-military groups that were once its fierce rivals.
Sreeta was the third prime minister of the party to be removed by the Constitutional Court, leaving office less than a year after taking office.
Thailand has endured two decades of chronic political turmoil, marked by coups, street protests and court orders, much of it stemming from a long-running feud between the military and pro-royalist forces and progressive parties linked to their most hated rival, Thaksin.
The former prime minister returned to Thailand last August from 15 years of self-imposed exile, and on the same day, Srettha formed an alliance with pro-military parties that had previously been staunch opponents of Thaksin and his followers to govern together.
The timing appears to suggest a temporary truce in the long-running dispute as both sides try to fend off the threat from the new party, March Forward (MFP), which won popular support in last year’s general election.
Later, that government was prevented from forming.
Pheu Thai stalwart Chaikasem Nitisiri, 75, was elected ahead of Patongtarn.
Political analyst Yuttaporn Issarachai said the move demonstrated Pheu Thai’s “strategy to support Thailand’s youth movement.”
But he said it would be difficult to “break away from the conservative and military influence that has dominated Thai politics for decades.”
– COURT CASE – The case against Srettha was brought by 40 former senators appointed by the military junta that overthrew the elected Pheu Thai government in a 2014 coup. – AFP
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