Thailand got its youngest Prime Minister, know who is Payatongtarn Shinawatra?

Thailand has got its new Prime Minister in the form of Paetongtarn Shinawatra. The 37-year-old daughter of former Prime Minister and billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, Paetongtarn has become the youngest Prime Minister to lead the country.

Payetongtarn’s appointment on Friday was made after the approval of Thai lawmakers. Two days earlier, the country’s Supreme Court had removed Shretha Thavisin from the post on charges of violating ethical values.

Payetongtarn Shinawatra comes from Thailand’s most influential political family. Her father, Taksin Shinawatra, was once considered extremely difficult to defeat in politics.

Thaksin Shinawatra came to power in Thailand in 2001 and became very popular in the rural areas of the north and north-east of the country. But during his time in power, he was accused of corruption and human rights violations and the country’s army began to dislike him. He was ousted in a coup in 2006. Despite this, he still remains influential in Thai politics.

Payetongtarn is the youngest of three children of Thaksin Shinawatra and the fourth member of the family to lead the country. Thaksin Shinawatra’s brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat was Prime Minister for a short time in 2008, while his sister Yingluck Shinawatra was Prime Minister of Thailand from 2011 to 2014. Both Somchai and Yingluck were removed from office due to court decisions.

After Yingluck, Payetongtarn is also the second woman to lead Thailand. To become the Prime Minister, she needed the approval of 247 out of 493 MPs, which she got.

Payetongtarn has little or no political experience and has taken office at a time of political instability, which is going to prove to be a big challenge for him.

Payetongtarn belongs to the Pheu Thai Party, which finished second to the Move Forward Party in last year’s elections. The Move Forward Party contested the elections with the promise of democratic reforms. Seeing Move Forward come to power, Payetongtarn’s father had made a controversial deal with his former enemies in the army to avoid legal cases. He returned to the country last year after 15 years of exile and forced Move Forward to sit in opposition.

The Pheu Thai party has come to power by joining hands with the very people it had fought against for a long time, including those who ousted Paytmongtarn’s aunt Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014.

Payetongtarn was a student of Chalalongkorn University in Bangkok. After graduation, she studied hotel management from Surrey University in Guildford, England. After her studies, she returned to the country to take forward the family business.

In 2021, she was appointed chief adviser to the Pheu Thai Party and was one of the party’s three prime ministerial candidates in last year’s election.

Paytongtarn was the main face of Pheu Thai’s election campaign as the party looked to shore up support among those loyal to her father. Paytongtarn was pregnant during the election campaign and attended rallies via video link. She gave birth to a child two weeks before the vote.

However, last year’s election showed that Payetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, had waned in popularity, and Payetongtarn was not seen in the race for prime minister when the party took power with the help of the military.

On Wednesday, when a Thai court ordered Shretha Thavisin to step down for ethics violations, the party was left without a replacement. And now, two days later, Payetongtarn has been elected the country’s prime minister.