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Srettha Thavisin, a Prime Ministerial candidate for Thailand’s Pheu Thai party, speaks to press at the end of election day on May 14, 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand holds its general elections on May 14, in a contest that could see the return of political forces allied with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Lauren Decicca | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Pheu Thai Party’s Srettha Thavisin will become Thailand’s prime minister after clinching parliamentary support in a Tuesday vote.
Srettha, a real estate mogul who entered the Thai political landscape mere months ago under the Pheu Thai’s mantle, required 375 votes to become premier and set up Bangkok’s next government.
Thailand has been administered by a caretaker government since March, with its parliament in deadlock.
The Move Forward party won a historical election in May, but was later blocked from pursuing a bid when its leader, U.S.-educated liberal Pita Limjaroenrat fell 51 votes of the majority needed from Thailand’s bicameral National Assembly to clinch the top job.
Critically, the victory of Move Forward paved the path for progress away from the military-backed rule of Prayuth Chan-ocha, who assumed power in a 2014 coup.
Pheu Thai, Thailand’s second-largest party, on Monday announced it had formed an 11-party alliance spanning 314 votes to form a government, according to a Google-translated Facebook post.
Controversially, the proposed coalition includes the pro-military parties of Ruam Thai Sang Chart — known as the United Thai Nation Party and associated with Prayuth Chan-ocha — and the Palang Pracharath Party of Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan.
Srettha’s victory comes hours after fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, 74, returned on Thai soil for the first time since 2008, ending 15 years of self-exile after being jailed in absentia for abuses of power.
He now faces eight years in prison. Thaksin founded an earlier incarnation of the Pheu Thai.
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