A dramatic and unexpected change in national leadership that consolidates the family clan’s hold on politics but wo n’t necessarily bring them to a stable foundation has been announced for Thailand’s next prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra.  ,
The 37-year-old political novice and devoted girl of until late self-exiled ex-premier and present Peua Thai party sponsor Thaksin Shinawatra voted overwhelmingly in favor, 319 for, 145 against, and 27 abstinence.
The beautiful Paetongtarn, a estate executive known as” Ung Ing,” becomes Thailand’s youngest-ever premier and is the third Shinawatra family member to take the lead, after the previous three were toppled by dictatorships and courts.  ,
Paetongtarn was being prepared to take the leadership of Peua Thai in the 2027 general elections, giving the party’s aging greats who decades back won on a” think fresh, act new” seat a desperately needed children boost.
Srettha Thavisin’s fate, which was announced this week, accelerated the royal timeframe. On August 14, the Constitutional Court ruled that his Cabinet’s visit of an ex-convict who again tried to bribe court judges with cash in a carrier in a situation involving Thaksin constituted a violation of ethics.
Srettha’s brief tenure will be remembered as largely ineffective as a result of bureaucratic resistance to his populist digital wallet cash handout scheme, which he bowed deeply and frequently and frequently to.
It will be closely watched and crucial to stability and her own political survival whether Paetongtarn adopts the same conciliatory stance toward the royal establishment that led to her father and aunt’s exile.  ,
Although Thaksin and his ex-wife were known to be reluctant to put their politically conservative daughter, who was pregnant on the 2023 campaign trail, in the line of fire so early in her political career.  ,
That reluctance was evident in Thaksin’s initial support for Chaikasem Nitsiri, the party’s choice for prime minister, hours after Srettha’s fall. The blazing hot-button issue that led to the downing of the progressive Move Forward party last week was Chaikasem’s previous calls to reform the lese majeste law.
The appointment of Chaikasem would have divided the coalition and signaled the backroom agreement between Thaksin and palace representatives that had united Peua Thai and conservative-leaning parties as uneasy bedfellows in the name of national unity prior to last year’s poll was now over.
Srettha’s unexpected court-ordered demise and the numerous conservative roadblocks that torpedoed his stimulus policies and the Thai economy may indicate that the royal establishment has already abandoned the agreement and will likewise attempt to disrupt and stymie Paetongtarn’s rule. If so, Paetongtarn may have been deliberately shoved in by Thaksin’s careful hand until now, putting her in position of power before she is ready for prime time.
By not spending a single night in jail for his criminal convictions and then overtly leading Srettha’s government from behind the scenes, some conservatives claim Thaksin violated the terms of his royal pardon, which King Vajiralongkorn granted him.  ,
If the royal deal is indeed dead, Paetongtarn could face similar conservative opposition, especially if she prioritizes a pending political amnesty that could bring her ex-premier aunt, who has been sentenced to death, from self-exile. On the campaign trail last year, she might also be subject to scrutiny for her own remarks about lese majeste reform.
There are new indications that the royalist noose on the Shinawatras is tightening once more. With a first hearing set for August 19, Thaksin faces a new lese majeste charge that he apparently is not covered by his previous royal pardon. Any move to withhold the ex-premier’s bail would mark a hard and clear escalation.  ,  ,
Paetongtarn’s moves will be closely and critically watched for signs of Thaksin’s paternal guidance. His command control was apparent even before she took the chair when announcing on August 15 Srettha’s 450 billion baht ( US$ 12.5 billon ) digital wallet handout, set for populist disbursal in November, would be scrapped.
Some people believe that the digital wallet will be replaced by village funds for the” creative economy,” according to Paetongtarn’s fiscal plan in her first address to a foreign audience at a small-room American Chamber of Commerce event on November 30.
That would potentially give her a new-age signature policy that could seek to reprise and modernize Thaksin’s own “one village, one product” scheme, the brainchild of his then-top advisor Pansak Vinyaratn that showered one million baht on all of the country’s then 77, 000 villages.
Indeed, Pansak’s voice was audible in Paetongtarn’s Am-Cham presentation, which referenced Harvard academic Joseph Nye’s notion of” soft power” as a model for Thai diplomacy and policy, and unabashedly lauded Thaksin and Pansak’s past grassroots policies aimed at the rural poor.  ,
However, Paetongtarn must persuade Thailand’s voters and international investors that her leadership is a truly new, more innovative approach to Thailand’s economic woes and demographic challenges, and that she is not just a stooge for Thaksin’s frequently grasping old guard.
The People’s Party, the new incarnation of the Move Forward party, is now wearing that new-age mantle; the party was banned this month for its campaigning to reform the lese majeste law, a position the Constitutional Court ruled was equivalent to trying to overthrow the constitutional monarchy.
A local authoritative poll conducted in mid-June showed Move Forward’s now-banned ex-leader Pita Limjaroenrat was favored by 45.5 % to be prime minister, widely outpacing then-premier Srettha’s 12.85 % and Paetongtarn’s 4.85 %. ( 20.55 % of respondents opted for” no satisfactory choice”. )
The same poll showed 49.2 % would have chosen Move Forward if new elections were held, streets ahead of the second-placing Peua Thai’s 16.85 %. While the People’s Party lamented Srettha’s court-ordered dismissal as “anti-democratic”, with the polls firmly on its side, the party declined to vote for Paetongtarn as his democratic replacement.