Anutin Charnvirakul of the Bhumjaithai party has taken office as prime minister of Thailand, the third to do so in three years, after receiving an endorsement from the country’s king yesterday.
Arpath Sukhanunth, the secretary-general of the House of Representatives, made the announcement on Sunday, reading aloud the royal endorsement during a ceremony at the Bhumjaithai headquarters in Bangkok. “His majesty the king has endorsed Mr Anutin Charnvirakul to be prime minister from now onwards,” he said, as per the AFP news agency.
The endorsement came after the 58-year-old, a former businessman, won a majority vote in the House of Representatives, receiving 311 votes, well ahead of Chaikasem Nitisiri of the Pheu Thai party, who received 152 votes.
In a week of heated political horse-trading that followed the court-ordered removal of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office on August 29, Anutin managed to out-maneuver the Pheu Thai party and secure the backing of the progressive People’s Party, the largest party in the House. The People’s Party voted for Anutin on the condition that he dissolves parliament within four months to hold elections. The party has remained in opposition, meaning that Anutin will head a rare minority government.
“I will work at my full capacity with honesty and morality worthy of His Majesty’s trust, for the benefit of the people and for the country,” Anutin said immediately after receiving the royal endorsement, AFP reported.
“My government will work tirelessly,” he added. “We will dedicate ourselves to work because we only have four months.”
After the vote, Anutin immediately began announcing members of his cabinet. On Saturday, he unveiled to the press three important “non-MP” appointments that he said would help “bring confidence” to Thailand. The first was veteran diplomat Sihasak Phuangketkeow, Thailand’s former representative to the United Nations, who will serve as foreign minister, an important position at any time, but particularly now, given the ongoing border dispute with Cambodia.
Anutin has also appointed Ekniti Nitithanprapa, the head of the Treasury Department at the Ministry of Finance, to the post of finance minister, while Auttapol Rerkpiboon, the former president and CEO of the Thai energy giant PTT, has been tapped to head the Ministry of Energy.
“We don’t have much time. Once we are sworn in, we want to hit the ground running,” he said, as per the Bangkok Post, adding that additional non-MP ministers will be introduced in due course, as part of his government’s broader structure. He also announced that four cabinet positions have been allocated to the military-adjacent Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP). Among the other rumored appointments are that of Santi Promphat, the PPRP’s deputy leader, to both deputy prime minister and public health minister. There are also rumors that Prawit Wongsuwan, a former general, will return to the defense ministry, a position that he held between 2014 and 2019, under the military government led by Prayut Chan-o-cha, although this has not been confirmed.
Anutin’s appointment caps off a long political and business career, which includes stints as interior minister under the outgoing Pheu Thai government and public health minister under Prayut, during which he helped lead Thailand’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the Prayut administration, he also spearheaded the country’s landmark decriminalization of cannabis, a policy that the Pheu Thai government had promised to reverse. (Given his government’s minority status, and pledge to dissolve parliament within four months, the status of the policy remains unclear.)
It also marks a significant step forward for Bhumjaithai, which as Ken Lohatepanont noted in a detailed profile published over the weekend, was born from a faction that broke away from Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party in 2008. The party has since outgrown its localist roots, and increased its electoral representation at every election since 2011. As Lohatepanont wrote, Anutin “has succeeded in making Bhumjaithai the new center of gravity in Thai party politics.”
Even if Anutin’s current term in office ends up being tightly constrained, he has successfully set the party up to play an increasingly important role in Thai politics over the longer term.