Veteran politician Anutin Charnvirakul elected Thai prime minister in parliamentary vote


By JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI

BANGKOK (AP) — Veteran Thai politician Anutin Charnvirakul was elected prime minister on Friday after winning a parliamentary vote, according to an official tally.

Anutin’s victory was a win for Thailand’s traditional establishment, said Kevin Hewison, a senior Thai studies scholar based in Australia. The People’s Party is the antithesis of the conservative royalist Bhumjaithai and should be worried even with such promises made as a quid-pro-quo, he said.

“Anutin and his people are untrustworthy. Trust has deserted Thai politics, so the four months to an election is likely slippery,” he said.

Ethical violations

The People’s Party, then named the Move Forward Party, won the most seats in the 2023 election but was kept from power when military-appointed senators, who were strong supporters of Thailand’s royalist conservative establishment, voted against its candidate because they opposed its policy seeking reforms to the monarchy.

The Senate no longer holds the right to take part in the vote for prime minister.

Pheu Thai later had one of its candidates, real estate executive Srettha Thavisin, approved as prime minister to lead a coalition government. But he served just a year before the Constitutional Court dismissed him from office for ethical violations.

Srettha’s replacement Paetongtarn, the daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, also lasted just a year in office. Her government was already greatly weakened when the Bhumjaithai Party abandoned her coalition in June.

The Thaksin-linked Pheu Thai party, which exited two years in power after Paetongtarn was removed, seems unlikely to do well in any new election, Hewison said.

Thaksin on Thursday left Thailand for Dubai, where he lived during his self-imposed exile starting in 2008. His travel took place days before a court ruling over a handling of his return in 2023 that could open him up to a new prison sentence. The move prompted speculation that he was fleeing again, although Thaksin said he was travelling for a medical checkup and would return to Thailand in a few days.

Associated Press writer Grant Peck contributed to this report.

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