 "Srettha Thavisin")
Some three months after an election that represented one of the biggest challenges in years to Thailand’s royal establishment, the country finally has a new prime minister — and it’s someone who has the support of forces aligned with the palace.
Srettha Thavisin (pictured), a former property tycoon, became the first new leader to take charge of Thailand since 2014, when former army chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha staged a coup. Srettha, 61, won 482 votes in a joint sitting of the parliament’s two chambers with 747 lawmakers on Tuesday. He was backed by 152 members of the military-appointed Senate in addition to his bloc’s 314 elected lawmakers and some others.
Srettha can form his cabinet once his appointment is endorsed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn in a Royal Gazette.
The vote came hours after Thaksin Shinawatra, a former premier who effectively helms Srettha’s Pheu Thai party, returned to Thailand for the first time in 15 years after cutting a deal with a military establishment that has repeatedly ousted his political allies over the past two decades. Pheu Thai had finished second to the upstart Move Forward party, which had pushed for changes to a law that restricts criticism of the nation’s powerful monarchy.
The agreement between former enemies effectively shut the door on Move Forward from taking power. Pita Limjaroenrat, the party’s 42-year-old Harvard-educated leader, had vowed to press ahead with — a stance that prompted senators to deny him the premiership.
