Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the heiress of Thailand’s most famous political dynasty, was sworn in as prime minister yesterday, capping a month of turmoil in which her predecessor was thrown out of office and the main opposition party dissolved.
Paetongtarn, the youngest daughter of controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, took the oath in a closed-door ceremony with King Maha Vajiralongkorn around 6.15pm (1115GMT), officially becoming Thailand’s youngest prime minister.
The 38-year-old is the third member of the Shinawatra political dynasty to lead the country in the past 23 years, following her father and her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra. The king congratulated her new cabinet, saying in a speech broadcast on television news: “I trust that you will perform your duties with excellence.”
Paetongtarn replaces Srettha Thavisin, from her Pheu Thai party, after his shock dismissal in mid-August by the kingdom’s Constitutional Court for appointing a cabinet minister with a criminal conviction.
She takes the helm of Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy with growth and investment stagnating as political instability lingers.
Her 36-member cabinet includes eight women, a record, according to public broadcaster Thai PBS. Paetongtarn, a relative newcomer to politics, urged her party’s enemies on Thursday to give her a chance. “Please be kind to me, please don’t throw any lawsuits on me, I am trying my best,” she told reporters. A power struggle between Thaksin and the country’s conservative royalist-military establishment has dominated Thai politics for decades.
Thaksin, a 75-year-old telecoms billionaire and one-time Manchester City owner, is loved by millions of poorer Thais for his social welfare policies in the early 2000s.
However, he has long been despised by elites who accuse him of corruption and wanting to smash Thailand’s social order.
Parties linked to Thaksin finished first in every election from 2001 until last year but their governments were regularly upended by court orders and military coups.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra poses with her cabinet members at the Government House ahead of a royal oath-taking ceremony for her cabinet in Bangkok, Thailand, yesterday.