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Srettha, who was thrust into the spotlight just a few months ago
by the populist Pheu Thai Party, secured the support of more
than half of the legislature, on a day when the party's
billionaire figurehead Thaksin Shinawatra made a historic
homecoming after years of as a fugitive in self-imposed exile.
Political neophyte Srettha, a former president of property
developer Sansiri, will be tasked with forming and holding
together a potentially fragile coalition that will include
parties backed by the royalist military, which overthrew Pheu
Thai governments in 2006 and 2014 coups.
Among those ousted was former telecoms tycoon and Premier League
football club owner Thaksin, who fled into exile and was jail in
absentia in 2008 for abuse of power and conflicts of interest. A
government led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted in
a coup in 2014.
Thaksin, 74, received a rapturous reception upon his return from
supporters at a Bangkok airport, before being escorted by police
to the Supreme Court then to a jail to serve a sentence of eight
years.
The return of Thailand's most famous politician and Srettha's
smooth ascent to the top job will add to speculation that
Thaksin may have done a deal with his enemies in the military
and establishment to allow his safe return, and possibly an
early release from jail.
Thaksin and Pheu Thai have denied that.
Tuesday's events were the latest twist in a nearly two decade
power struggle between Pheu Thai, which has won five elections,
and a nexus of conservatives, generals and old money families
that have long wielded influence on politics and the economy.
Srettha was declared by Pheu Thai as a prime ministerial
candidate, alongside Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin's youngest
daughter, in the run-up to a May 14 election in which the party
finished second.
An attempt to form a coalition with the election winner, the
progressive Move Forward, collapsed after it met fierce
resistance from conservative members of the lower house and
Senators under the influence of the military.
(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat, Panu Wongcha-um, Chayut
Setboonsarng, Juarawee Kittisilpa, Devjyot Ghoshal and Napat
Wesshasartar; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Stephen
Coates, Robert Birsel)
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