After defeating the adversary of the ruling party, Anutin Charnvirakul  elected PM of Thailand.

After a week of turmoil and political impasse, Anutin Charnvirakul of Thailand was chosen prime minister on Friday after easily defeating the nominee of the Shinawatra family’s former powerful ruling party in a parliamentary vote.

After days of drama and a power struggle in which he outwitted Thailand’s most successful political party, Anutin easily exceeded the threshold of more than half of the lower house votes needed to become premier with resounding opposition support. Throughout years of unrest, Anutin has remained a pillar of Thai politics by deliberately placing his Bhumjaithai party between rival elites engaged in an unwinnable power struggle and securing its place in a string of coalition governments.

The ruling Pheu Thai party, the formerly unstoppable populist juggernaut of powerful billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who departed Thailand late Thursday for Dubai, where he spent the majority of his 15 years in self-imposed exile, was humiliated by his crushing of opponent candidate Chaikasem Nitisiri.

With twice as many votes as Chaikasem, Anutin took the lead right away and received 63% of the vote. When he emerged from the chamber, he was surrounded by a phalanx of reporters, who jostled and yelled at him as he made his way slowly to a waiting car, his assistants protecting him.

“I will work my hardest, every day, no holidays, because there is not a lot of time,” Anutin said, his face lit up by bursts of camera flashes.

“We have to ease problems quickly.”

Anutin’s exit from the partnership in June set off Pheu Thai’s crisis, leaving the coalition government clinging to power with a razor-thin majority in the face of demonstrations and dwindling public support.

The sixth prime minister from or supported by the Shinawatra family to be ousted by the military or judiciary was Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin’s daughter and protégé, who was dismissed by a court last week.
Anutin’s triumph was the consequence of an agreement he made with the People’s Party, the most powerful opposition party in parliament, promising to organize a referendum on constitutional amendments and to hold elections within four months.