Thai king endorses Paetongtarn Shinawatra as prime minister

BANGKOK: Paetongtarn Shinawatra was endorsed as prime minister by Thailand’s king on Sunday, two days after parliament elected her, paving the way for her to form a cabinet in the coming weeks.

Paetongtarn, 37, becomes Thailand’s youngest prime minister just days after ally Srettha Thavisin was dismissed as premier by the Constitutional Court, a judiciary central to Thailand’s two decades of intermittent political turmoil.

Daughter of divisive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Paetongtarn won by nearly two-thirds in a House vote on Friday, to become Thailand’s second female prime minister and the third Shinawatra to take the office, following Thaksin and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra.

The approval by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, a formality, was read out by House of Representatives Secretary Apat Sukhanand at a ceremony in Bangkok on Sunday.

Dressed in official uniform, Paetongtarn knelt in homage to a portrait of the king before giving a short speech thanking the king and the people’s representatives for endorsing her as prime minister.

“As head of the executive branch, I will do my duty together with the legislators with an open heart,” she said.

“I will listen to all opinions so together we can take the country forward with stability,” she said.

Paetongtarn, who has never served in government, faces challenges on multiple fronts, with the economy floundering and the popularity of her Pheu Thai party dwindling, having yet to deliver on its flagship digital wallet cash handout programme worth 500 billion baht ($15 billion).

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After accepting the royal endorsement, Paetongtarn hugged her father Thaksin, and other family members.

The fall of her predecessor Srettha after less than a year in office is a reminder of the risk for Paetongtarn with Thailand trapped in a tumultuous cycle of coups and court rulings that have disbanded political parties and toppled multiple governments and prime ministers.

Also at stake is the legacy and political future of the billionaire Shinawatra family, whose once unstoppable populist juggernaut suffered its first election defeat in over two decades last year and had to make a deal with its bitter enemies in the military to form a government.