Thai parliament elects Anutin Charnvirakul as prime minister

BANGKOK: Thailand's parliament elected Anutin Charnvirakul as the country's new prime minister on Friday (Sep 5). 

He secured a majority of 311 votes, beating Pheu Thai party's Chaikasem Nitisiri in the first prime minister face-off in parliament since 2019. Chaikasem himself secured 152 votes out of the 490 cast, and there were 27 abstentions. 

Anutin was already in pole position ahead of Friday's vote, declaring that he had secured 146 votes from his own Bhumjaithai party and its allies, while the largest parliamentary bloc, the People's Party, said its 143 lawmakers would also support him on the condition that parliament is dissolved for fresh polls within four months.

He was mobbed by a phalanx of media as he left the chamber, his aides fending off a scrum of journalists who jostled and shouted as he edged slowly towards a waiting car.

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"I will work my hardest, every day, no holidays, because there is not a lot of time," Anutin said, his face lit up by bursts of camera flashes.

"We have to ease problems quickly."

Heir to a construction engineering fortune, the 58-year-old has previously served as deputy prime minister, interior minister and health minister - but is perhaps most famous for delivering on a promise in 2022 to legalise cannabis. That policy is now in the process of being more strictly regulated for medical purposes.

Charged with the tourist-dependent kingdom's COVID-19 response, he accused Westerners of spreading the virus and was forced to apologise after a backlash.

DYNASTY IN FLIGHT

Anutin's elevation to office is set to be another major blow to the Shinawatra clan, which has been a mainstay of Thai politics for the past two decades.

Their populist movement has long jousted with the pro-military, pro-monarchy establishment - but is being increasingly bedevilled by legal and political setbacks.

Anutin once backed former Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra's coalition, but abandoned her this summer in apparent outrage over her conduct during a border row with neighbouring Cambodia.

Thailand's Constitutional Court found on Aug 29 that her conduct breached ministerial ethics and fired her after only a year in power.

The lead-up to the vote on Friday was earlier overshadowed by a sudden trip to Dubai by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Polarising billionaire Thaksin, the Shinawatra dynasty patriarch and central figure in a tumultuous battle for power in Thailand, left on his private jet late on Thursday, with his family's ruling party Pheu Thai in disarray.

In an early-morning post on social media site X, Thaksin said he left Thailand for a medical check-up in Singapore, but diverted to Dubai because of an airport closure and will "visit friends" there as well as meet respiratory and orthopaedic doctors.

The Supreme Court is due to rule on Tuesday in a case over Thaksin's hospital stay following his return from exile in August 2023, a decision that could affect the validity of his early release last year.

While his guilt is not the subject of the case, some analysts say the verdict could see him jailed.

For now, Pheu Thai is still governing in a caretaker capacity and made a last-ditch effort to forestall Friday's vote by requesting the palace dissolve parliament.

But royal officials rejected the bid, according to acting prime minister Phumtham Wechayachai, citing "disputed legal issues" around Pheu Thai's ability to make such a move as an interim administration.

Despite the heavy defeat, Pheu Thai vowed to come back to power and deliver on its agenda.

"We will return to finish the job for all the Thai people," it said.

Additional reporting by Saksith Saiyasombut.