Thailand’s Anutin Charnvirakul Elected Prime Minister By Country’s Parliament

Last Updated:September 05, 2025, 14:59 IST

Anutin Charnvirakul has been elected Thailand’s Prime Minister, defeating rival Chaikasem Nitisiri in a parliamentary vote.

Bhumjaithai Party leader and prime ministerial candidate Anutin Charnvirakul (Photo: Reuters)

Anutin Charnvirakul was on Friday elected Thailand’s Prime Minister through the country’s parliamentary vote. According to Reuters, Charnvirakul easily passed the threshold of more than half of the lower house votes required to become premier.

In the still-underway ballot, Anutin had 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.

His defeat of rival contender Chaikasem Nitisiri was a humiliation for the ruling Pheu Thai party, the once unstoppable populist juggernaut of influential billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who left Thailand last week for Dubai, where he spent the bulk of his 15 years in self-imposed exile.

Pheu Thai’s crisis was triggered back in June by Anutin’s withdrawal from its alliance, which left the coalition government clinging to power with a razor-thin majority amid protests and plummeting popularity.

The hammer blow was last week’s dismissal by the Constitutional Court of Thaksin’s daughter and protege Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the sixth Prime Minister from or backed by the Shinawatra family to be removed by the military or judiciary.

WHO IS ANUTIN CHARNVIRAKUL?

Anutin has been a mainstay in Thai politics throughout years of turmoil, positioning his Bhumjaithai Party strategically between warring elites embroiled in an intractable power struggle and guaranteeing its place in a succession of coalition governments.

A political veteran, who once ran his family’s construction firm, 58-year-old Anutin is a former deputy premier, interior minister and health minister, who served as Thailand’s Covid-19 tsar, according to Reuters.

As a staunch royalist, Anutin is considered a conservative, although he made a name for himself by leading a successful campaign to decriminalise cannabis in Thailand, which led to an explosion of thousands of marijuana retailers.

Anutin will lead a minority government, which the People’s Party will not join, and take the helm of a country with an economy struggling from weak consumption, tight lending and soaring levels of household debt.

ALSO READ | Prime Minister Ousted, Parties Feuding, King Drawn In: Thailand’s Political Crisis Explained

About the Author

Vani Mehrotra

Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks.

Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks.

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