Paetongtarn Shinawatra was elected as Thailand’s next prime minister after she won the majority of votes in parliament on Friday.
The 37-year-old is the youngest leader to take the prime minister office.
Ms Paetongtarn, who is the daughter of former Thai prime minister and billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and head of the ruling Pheu Thai party, had been expected to receive the House of Representatives majority.
A newcomer dynast, she won with 319 votes, or nearly two-thirds of the house. She was not present in parliament and watched the vote from Pheu Thai’s headquarters.
Ms Paetongtarm is set to immediately face challenges on multiple fronts, with Thailand’s economy floundering and the popularity of her Pheu Thai Party dwindling, having yet to deliver on its flagship cash handout programme worth 500bn baht ($14.25bn).
Her majority win comes just days after former prime minister Srettha Thavisin was removed from office by a Constitutional Court’s order on Wednesday.
He was removed for briefly appointing a convicted lawyer to his cabinet in April this year, only to see him quit in May after the decision sparked a furore.
Pichit Chuenban was jailed for six months on contempt of court charges in 2008 for allegedly seeking to bribe a judge in a case involving Thaksin Shinawatra, founder of the Pheu Thai Party.
Thaksin was convicted last year of corruption and defaming the monarchy and sentenced to eight years in prison but was released on parole in February.
Although Pichit had served his sentence when he was made minister, the court ruled, his behaviour was dishonest.
Ms Paetongtarn is on path to become Thailand’s second woman prime minister and the country’s third leader from the Shinawatra family if the parliament vote approves her.
She has acknowledged her family ties in Thailand’s leadership legacy and insisted that she is not just her father’s proxy. “It’s not the shadow of my dad. I am my dad’s daughter, always and forever, but I have my own decisions,” she had said on the campaign trail for Pheu Thai.
Her father Thaksin is reputed as the country’s most popular but divisive political figures and was ousted by a military coup in 2006.
Thaksin was sentenced to jail last year on corruption charges but was released in February this year. He is widely seen as a de facto leader of Pheu Thai, the latest in a string of parties linked to him. His residual popularity and influence is a factor behind the political support for Ms Paetongtarn.
Her public entry into politics came in 2021 when the Pheu Thai party announced she would lead an inclusion advisory committee. She was appointed as leader of Pheu Thai last year, after she was named one of its three prime ministerial candidates ahead of the polls.
Political experts have said Thaksin’s shadow is too big to be dismissed and she will face hardships with her father continuing to call political shots for the party.
“Thaksin was a political force to reckon with, but he was also a liability,” said Petra Alderman, a political research fellow at England’s University of Birmingham. “He has a tendency to overplay his political hand, so serving in his shadow has never been easy.”