Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the political heiress to become Thailand's youngest prime minister

BANGKOK: When Paetongtarn Shinawatra made her electoral debut last year - heavily pregnant during the campaign trail - she reminded rural voters of her influential family's legacy of populism.

It underlined her family's central place in Thai politics, 18 years after her father Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as prime minister in a military coup.

On Friday (Aug 16), Paetongtarn was elected by Thai lawmakers as the new prime minister. She will be the country's youngest leader at 37 years old - and the third prime minister of the Shinawatra name, after her billionaire father and aunt Yingluck Shinawatra.

Her Pheu Thai party had secured backing from the governing alliance a day earlier to nominate her for the top job, replacing Srettha Thavisin who was dismissed on Wednesday for appointing a Cabinet minister with a criminal conviction.

A political newcomer, Paetongtarn helped run the hotel arm of the ultra-rich family's business empire before joining politics three years ago.

She was a near-constant presence on the campaign trail in last year's election when she became the face of the Pheu Thai party and one of its three prime ministerial candidates.

Srettha ultimately took power in alliance with pro-military parties previously staunchly opposed to Thaksin and his followers.

The timing seemed to suggest a truce in the long-standing feud as both sides sought to see off the threat posed by the newer Move Forward Party (MFP), which won the popular vote.

In October 2023, Pheu Thai members voted overwhelmingly for Paetongtarn to become party leader and vowed to rejuvenate its image.

During the Srettha government, she chaired the national soft power committee to push Thailand abroad.

ENERGY, YOUTH

Known in Thailand by her nickname Ung Ing, Paetongtarn is the youngest child of Thaksin, a policeman turned telecoms tycoon who won two elections in the early 2000s.

She grew up in Bangkok, steeped in the country's tumultuous politics as an ambitious Thaksin charted his meteoritic rise to wealth and then launched the Thai Rak Thai Party in 1998.

"When I was eight years old, my father entered politics. Since that day, my life has also been intertwined with politics," she said in a speech in March.

Thaksin found his way to the premiership by 2001 and expanded spending on healthcare, rural development and farming subsidies - dubbed "Thaksinomics" for the poor.

He was ejected by a military coup in 2006.

Entering university in Thailand after his unceremonious ouster, Paetongtarn described those years as some of her toughest, when she was also accused of cheating.

"At times, I would see pictures of my father pinned to the wall, crossed out and drawn on," she said in her March speech.

"At the age of 20, being surrounded by hate was very difficult to overcome."

She went on to study hotel management in Britain, then married commercial pilot Pidok Sooksawas in 2019 with two glitzy receptions in the Thai capital and Hong Kong. The couple now have two children.

Paetongtarn shares her jet-setting lifestyle with almost a million followers on Instagram, and her youth and energy stand out in a political scene dominated by strait-laced elderly men.

She was nominated for prime minister ahead of 75-year-old Pheu Thai stalwart Chaikasem Nitisiri - a move that showed the party's "strategy to stand by the youth movement", political analyst Yuttaporn Issarachai told AFP.

But he said it would be difficult to "move on from the conservative and military influence" that has dominated Thai politics for decades.

Paetongtarn is untested. She has never held an elected government position and has no administrative experience.

In May, amid bickering between Srettha's administration and the Bank of Thailand over interest rates, she said the central bank's independence was an "obstacle" in resolving economic problems, drawing criticism.

But the young leader will likely have the guiding hand of her father.

"She will be under scrutiny. She will be under a lot of pressure," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.

"She will have to rely on her father."