Thai election: Paetongtarn, Thaksin’s charismatic and astute daughter, confirmed as PM candidate
- Paetongtarn Shinawatra, a 36-year-old with a jet-setting lifestyle, stands in stark contrast to her rivals, two former army chiefs with a combined age of 146
- The youngest of ex-PM Thaksin’s children, and educated in Thailand and Britain, Paetongtarn has managed the hotel branch of her family’s business empire
Thailand’s main opposition Pheu Thai party confirmed on Wednesday that the daughter of billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra is one of its candidates to be prime minister in the kingdom’s coming election.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, a 36-year-old with a jet-setting lifestyle and half a million Instagram followers, stands in stark contrast to her establishment rivals, two strait-laced former army chiefs with a combined age of 146.
A sea of Pheu Thai supporters, wearing T-shirts in the party’s signature colour red, tramped into a football stadium on the northern edge of Bangkok to see Paetongtarn anointed alongside businessman Srettha Thavisin and party strategist Chaikasem Nitisiri.
Paetongtarn, who has been campaigning energetically despite being eight months pregnant, said she relished the fight.
“It is going to be a challenge but we will go and communicate as much as possible,” she told reporters.
The parties for the May 14 vote fall into two broad camps – those backed by Thailand’s military and royalist establishment, and more reformist opposition groups with Pheu Thai at their head.
