Paetongtarn Shinawatra was endorsed as prime minister by Thailand’s king yesterday, two days after parliament elected her, paving the way for her to form a cabinet in the coming weeks.
Paetongtarn, 37, becomes Thailand’s youngest prime minister just days after ally Srettha Thavisin was dismissed as premier by the Constitutional Court, a judiciary central to Thailand’s two decades of political turmoil.
Daughter of divisive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Paetongtarn won by nearly two-thirds in a house vote on Friday to become Thailand’s second female prime minister and the third Shinawatra to take the office, following Thaksin and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra.
The approval by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, a formality, was read out by House of Representatives Secretary Apat Sukhanand at a ceremony in Bangkok.
Dressed in official uniform, Paetongtarn knelt in homage to a portrait of king before giving a speech thanking the king and the people’s representatives for endorsing her as prime minister.
