San Francisco Frontiers - Thai tycoon wins parliament vote to become PM

Since 2023 elections, the Pheu Thai party of the powerful Shinawatra family has monopolised Thailand's top office, but a court ruling last week saw dynasty heiress Paetongtarn Shinawatra sacked from the post.

Rushing into the power vacuum, construction magnate Anutin Charnvirakul has cobbled together a coalition of opposition blocs to shut Pheu Thai out of the premier's office.

In the still-underway ballot Anutin has won more than 247 votes, according to an AFP tally, securing the majority backing of the 492 MPs sitting in the National Assembly's lower house.

"It's normal to feel excited," Anutin told a scrum of reporters as he arrived for the vote.

The Shinawatra dynasty patriarch, Thaksin Shinawatra, flew out of the country in the hours ahead of Friday's vote and was bound for Dubai, where he said he would visit friends and seek medical treatment.

Anutin leads the Bhumjaithai Party and previously served as deputy prime minister, interior minister and health minister -- but is perhaps most famous for in 2022 delivering on a promise to legalise cannabis.

Charged with the tourist-dependent kingdom's Covid-19 response, the 58-year-old accused Westerners of spreading the virus and was swiftly forced to apologise after a backlash.

He won crucial backing from the largest parliamentary bloc, the 143-seat People's Party, only on the condition that parliament is dissolved for fresh polls within four months.

- Dynasty in flight -

Anutin's elevation to office is set to be another major blow to the Shinawatra clan, which has been a mainstay of Thai politics for the past two decades.

Their populist movement has long jousted with the pro-military, pro-monarchy establishment -- but is being increasingly bedevilled by legal and political setbacks.

Pheu Thai put forward its own candidate in the vote for prime minister -- Chaikasem Nitisiri, who served as justice minister under a previous Shinawatra prime minister.

But he lagged badly behind Anutin in the poll, securing around only half the number of votes.

The Supreme Court is due to rule on Tuesday in a case over Thaksin's hospital stay following his return from exile in August 2023, a decision that could affect the validity of his early release last year.

While his guilt is not the subject of the case, some analysts say the verdict could see him jailed.

Thaksin said on social media he will return from Dubai to attend the court date "in person".

Anutin once backed the Shinawatras' Pheu Thai coalition but abandoned it this summer in apparent outrage over Paetongtarn's conduct during a border row with neighbouring Cambodia.

Thailand's Constitutional Court found on August 29 that she had breached ministerial ethics and fired her after only a year in power.

For now, Pheu Thai is still governing in a caretaker capacity and made a last-ditch effort to forestall Friday's vote by requesting the palace dissolve parliament.

But royal officials rejected the bid, according to acting prime minister Phumtham Wechayachai, citing "disputed legal issues" around Pheu Thai's ability to make such a move as an interim administration.

G.Collins--SFF