Former Thai deputy leader Anutin Charnvirakul is new prime minister

by · UPI

Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Thai lawmakers selected former Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul as the country's new prime minister on Friday, a week after Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was removed from office over a leaked phone call.

Charnvirakul, 58, who served as the number two in Shinawatra's coalition government, and the two prime ministers before her, was able to win sufficient support by pulling his conservative Thai Pride Party from the power-sharing administration led by Shinawatra's populist Pheu Thai party.

However, with just 69 of the 500 seats in the National Assembly, he will need to cut a deal with either the People's Party or PT, the two largest parties.

His election delivers a further shock to the powerful Shinawatra family's political fortunes after Paetongtarn became the fifth prime minister to be removed in 17 years by the country's constitutional court with her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, reported Thursday night to be aboard a private jet en route to Dubai.

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Thaksin Shinawatra, who made billions from developing the country's telecoms sector, only returned to Thailand in August 2023 after spending the past 15 years in exile abroad after fleeing corruption charges after he was ousted in a military coup.

He was due in court on Tuesday for a ruling on whether he has served sufficient time for convictions for abuse of power and conflicts of interest convictions -- but insisted he would return in time for the hearing.

His sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted in a military coup in 2014.

An engineer by training, Charnvirakul is heir to his family's Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction business empire, responsible for some of the country's biggest infrastructure projects, including Suvarnabhumi Airport, the country's main international air hub.

He led the company while serving a five-year political ban over his membership of Thaksin Shinawatra's then-Thai Rak Thai party, which was dissolved over alleged election rigging, before returning to found the Thai Pride Party in 2012.

Charnvirakul has also spearheaded a drive to legalize medical-use marijuana, eventually pushing through decriminalization legislation in 2022, prompting criticism that a lack of guardrails had triggered a tsunami of dispensing outlets and recreational use across Thailand.

He insists his aim had always been to make it easier for people to obtain the drug for medical purposes.

Thailand's Constitutional Court voted by 6-3 margin Aug. 29 to remove Paetongtam two months after she was suspended over a leaked phone call with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in which she criticized the Thai military, called him "uncle" and offered to do his bidding.

The conversation took place in June during deadly border clashes between the two countries.

Paetongtam said she was attempting to de-escalate in her call with Hun Sen by leveraging a long-standing friendship between her father and the former Khmer Rouge fighter.

Removing Paetongtam, the justices said she "lacks the qualifications and possesses prohibited characteristics" required under the country's constitution.