BANGKOK: One of Thailand’s largest political parties, founded by ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, elected a new leader on Friday, the party said, following the resignation of his daughter, the former prime minister.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 39, stepped down as Pheu Thai party chief last week after a court removed her as prime minister in August over an ethics breach linked to a border dispute with Cambodia.
Analysts say her departure was a strategic move to shield Pheu Thai from potential legal challenges and could mark the end of the Shinawatra family’s decades-long dominance in Thai politics.
Pheu Thai members elected Julapun Amornvivat, a former deputy finance minister, as their new leader, according to a livestream on the party’s official Facebook page.
“I feel honoured to receive this privilege and thank all party members for their confidence,” the MP from northern Chiang Mai province, a Pheu Thai stronghold, told reporters after the vote.
Julapun, 50, is the son of veteran politician Sompong Amornvivat, who served as deputy prime minister and led Pheu Thai in 2019.
He was among those promoting the party’s flagship campaign policies ahead of the 2023 election, including a proposed 10,000-baht (US$300) stimulus handout and the legalisation of casinos.
However, observers say that whoever leads Pheu Thai will remain under the influence of party patriarch Thaksin and his political dynasty.
The Shinawatra clan has been the key foe of Thailand’s pro-military, pro-royalty elite, who view their populist brand of politics as a threat to the traditional social order, for two decades.
Thaksin, who founded the first iteration of Pheu Thai in the late 1990s, was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 coup and then went into exile for more than a decade.
The 76-year-old is currently serving a prison sentence for corruption during his time in office.
