On August 16, 2024, Thailand met its new Prime Minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the second female and the youngest Prime Minister in the modern history of Thailand.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra- a new face on the political arena of Thailand?
Paetongtarn Shinawatra is a businesswoman, and politician, who is coming from an influential political family: her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, was a 23rd Prime Minister of Thailand in 2001-2006, her aunt has been serving as 28th Prime Minister of Thailand in years 2011-2014. Paetongtarn Shinawatra has received a good quality education, receiving Bachelor of Political Science in Chulalongkorn University and master’s degree at the University of Surrey. She is the largest shareholder and a director of one of the largest satellite companies “Taicom”, which operates in Asia, Oceania and Africa and is valued at approximately $2 billion.
Apart from these, Shinawatra is a leader of the center-right Pheu Thai Party that has been a major leading party in the country since 2007. Pheu Thai Party is staying for liberal conservatism and economic liberalism; however, it is harshly criticized for being a populistic continuation of a military-led government.
Although Thailand is the second largest economy in the Southeast Asia, it is still described as a newly industrialized economy, which is struggling to be a fully democratic. Despite the fact that Thailand has never been colonized, it has been going from one military coup to another after the proclamation of the constitutional monarchy in 1932. Even in the early 2000s the country relived two coups: in 2006, when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s elected caretaker administration was overthrown by the Royal Thai Army; and in 2014, when after six months of political unrest, the Royal Thai Armed Forces, staged the coup against the country’s government. Even though a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was established in 2019, a great influence of military remained in the country provoking another wave of political protests in the years 2020 and 2021.
An attempt of the government’s change
In May 2023 the new oppositionist social democratic party “Move Forward” has won the general election taking 151 from 251 seats becoming the leading party in the House of Representatives of Thailand. “Pheu Thai” went the second taking 141 seats. “Move Forward” was functionally blocked by supporters of the monarchy and military in the Senate, preventing it from forming a government even though it had a majority in the lower house when it first formed a coalition with other pro-democracy, anti-military parties. Then “Pheu Thai” took the initiative, breaking away from Move Forward and forming an alliance with conservative, pro-military parties. Subsequently, it proposed Srettha Thavisin, a real estate magnate, to be prime minister. After that the Move Forward Party was barred from politics by Thailand’s Constitutional Court because of their proposal to amend the “lèse-majesté statute” (an offence against the dignity of a ruling head of state), which they claimed threatened the country’s constitutional order.
Thaksin Shinawatra and the Shinawatra political family
When the opposition party was almost totally destroyed, the former Prime Minister and the founder of “Pheu Thai” Thaksin Shinawatra returned to Thailand after years in self-imposed exile. Thaksin Shinawatra was removed from office after the 2006 military coup. The “Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarch” blamed Shinawatra’s government of corruption, interference with state agencies and creation of social divisions. The corruption level has actually increased since Thaksin Shinawatra took office- from 32 points in 2001 to 38 points[1] in 2005. The level of crime had grown as well, but later started to fall.
The former Prime Minister after the coup went to the exile in the UK, where he secretly continued his political role through the “People’s Power Party” (the predecessor of the Pheu Thai Party), but the party was dissolved in 2008 by the decision of the Constitutional Court. The former Prime Minister has formed an alliance with the pro-military establishment and found the Pheu Thai Party. He continued his political life in the shade politics using his nearest circle: his younger sister became the Prime Minister of Thailand in 2011 (representing the Pheu Thai Party) and now it’s his daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra.
Several years later, Thaksin Shinawatra went from the exile in Britain to Thailand just a year before his daughter was nominated on the post of Prime Minister. Even though he was taken into custody right after the arrival to the country, his sentence was shortened from 8 years to just one due to the King’s pardon request. Although, Paetongtarn Shinawatra is a new young female in Thailand’s politics, most experts are stating that she will probably continue the policy of her father and center-right Pheu Thai Party.
