Thailand’s Anutin Charnvirakul elected PM in parliamentary vote

BANGKOK (AP) — Veteran Thai politician Anutin Charnvirakul was elected prime minister on Friday after winning a parliamentary vote, according to an official tally.

The leader of the Bhumjaithai party won a total of 311 votes, far exceeding the 247 required majority from the House of Representative’s 492 active members. He and his government are expected to take office in a few days after obtaining a formal appointment from King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

Anutin, 58, succeeds Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was dismissed by court order as prime minister last week after being found guilty of ethics violations over a politically compromising phone call with neighboring Cambodia’s Senate President Hun Sen.

A border dispute between the two nations erupted into a deadly five-day armed conflict in July.

Anutin, who’s an elected member of the House, got up from his seat and walked around the chamber to take pictures with other lawmakers when he was a few votes short from the winning total.

Anutin told reporters as he exited Parliament to visit his father in a hospital that he would work hard to solve the country’s problems,. “I intend to work with my full capability,” he said. “I must work everyday and make the most out of it, with no day off.”

Videos published by Thai media showed Anutin laughing as he hugged his father who said he was “very happy to see this day.”

Anutin had served in Paetongtarn’s Cabinet, but he resigned his position and withdrew his party from her coalition government after news of the leaked phone call caused a public uproar.

Pheu Thai, currently leading a caretaker government, sought to dissolve Parliament on Tuesday, but its request was rejected by the king’s Privy Council. The party’s nominee for prime minister, Chaikasem Nitisiri, received 152 votes.

Promise to dissolve parliament

Anutin had served in the Pheu Thai-led coalition government that took power in 2023 and before that in the military-backed elected government under former Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.

Anutin is best known for successfully lobbying for the decriminalization of cannabis, a policy that is now being more strictly regulated for medical purposes. He was also a health minister during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he was accused of tardiness in obtaining adequate vaccine supplies to fight the virus.

His party has promised to dissolve Parliament within four months in exchange for support from the progressive People’s Party. That party’s leader, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, said it would remain in the opposition, leaving the new government potentially a minority one.

The People’s Party said an Anutin-led government would have to commit to organizing a referendum on the drafting of a new constitution by an elected constituent assembly. The party has long sought changes to the constitution — which was imposed during a military government — to make it more democratic.

Anutin’s victory was a win for Thailand’s traditional establishment, said Kevin Hewison, a senior Thai studies scholar based in Australia. The People’s Party is the antithesis of the conservative royalist Bhumjaithai and should be worried even with such promises made as a quid-pro-quo, he said.

“Anutin and his people are untrustworthy. Trust has deserted Thai politics, so the four months to an election is likely slippery,” he said.

Ethical violations

The People’s Party, then named the Move Forward Party, won the most seats in the 2023 election but was kept from power when military-appointed senators, who were strong supporters of Thailand’s royalist conservative establishment, voted against its candidate because they opposed its policy seeking reforms to the monarchy.

The Senate no longer holds the right to take part in the vote for prime minister.

Pheu Thai later had one of its candidates, real estate executive Srettha Thavisin, approved as prime minister to lead a coalition government. But he served just a year before the Constitutional Court dismissed him from office for ethical violations.

Srettha’s replacement Paetongtarn, the daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, also lasted just a year in office. Her government was already greatly weakened when the Bhumjaithai Party abandoned her coalition in June.

The Thaksin-linked Pheu Thai party, which exited two years in power after Paetongtarn was removed, seems unlikely to do well in any new election, Hewison said.

Thaksin on Thursday left Thailand for Dubai, where he lived during his self-imposed exile starting in 2008. His travel took place days before a court ruling over a handling of his return in 2023 that could open him up to a new prison sentence. The move prompted speculation that he was fleeing again, although Thaksin said he was travelling for a medical checkup and would return to Thailand in a few days.

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Associated Press writer Grant Peck contributed to this report.