Thailand’s Pheu Thai party has chosen 37-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as its candidate for prime minister, it announced on Thursday, a day after a court dismissed the incumbent premier in an ethics case.
“We decide to nominate Paetongtarn Shinawatra,” party secretary general Sorawong Thienthong told a press conference in Bangkok.
Lawmakers will vote on Friday in parliament – where Pheu Thai heads a governing coalition – on whether to approve Paetongtarn as prime minister.
The vote comes after Thailand’s Constitutional Court sacked premier Srettha Thavisin on Wednesday after ruling he had breached regulations by appointing a cabinet minister with a criminal conviction.
Srettha was the third prime minister from Pheu Thai to be kicked out by the Constitutional Court and leaves office after less than a year.
Thai politics has endured two decades of chronic instability marked by coups, street protests and court orders.
Much of it has been fuelled by the long-running battle by the military and pro-royalist establishment against progressive parties linked to Thaksin.
