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Bangkok [Thailand], March 19 (ANI) Thailand's House of Representatives on Thursday elected Anutin Charnvirakul as the country's new Prime Minister with 293 votes, state media reported.
The 59-year old Anutin was elected the country's prime minister in a parliamentary vote following the February 8 general election. His opponent, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut of the People's Party, received 119 votes, while 86 members abstained, Thai news agency (TNA) MCOT said. A total of 86 lawmakers abstained in the election. Anutin's Bhumjaithai Party had won 191 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives, trouncing the progressive People's Party (which won 120 seats) and then cobbled together a coalition of 16 parties -- including the populist Pheu Thai -- that together hold 292 seats. As per the Bangkok Post, Anutin, who has become the first Thai premier to be voted back to office in two decades, can expect a very brief honeymoon as a host of problems beset Thailand Best known for championing decriminalisation of cannabis in 2022, he headed a minority government after the court-ordered ouster of Paetongtarn Shinawatra in August 2025 after her phone call with Cambodian strongman Hun Sen was leaked. The Bangkok Post analysis said that the first term of Anutin's began six weeks after Thailand and Cambodia agreed to a ceasefire to end fierce border clashes, but the fighting resumed in early December with increased intensity, stretching the entire length of the land border between the neighbours. The conflict, the news outlet said, afforded Anutin "an opportunity to not only burnish his nationalist credentials, but also a window to seek a decisive mandate with a parliamentary majority." His father, Chavarat Charnvirakul, founded the Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction Company, which initially worked on projects that included fencing US military sites in Thailand but eventually grew into a major construction firm. Anutin joined politics when he entered an administration led by billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra in 2004. After Thaksin's populist Thai Rak Thai party was dissolved by a court order in 2007, Anutin was also banned for five-years from politics. He returned in 2012 as the leader of the Bhumjaithai party. (ANI)
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