The Thai House of Representatives on August 16 elected the Pheu Thai party's leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra as the 31^st Prime Minister with 319 votes for, 145 votes against and 27 abstentions.

aetongtarn Shinawatra at a press conference in Bangkok on August 15. (Photo: XINHUA/VNA)

The 37-year-old daughter of former premier and Pheu Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra became the youngest PM in the Southeast Asian country’s history.

She succeeded Srettha Thavisin, who was dismissed by the Constitutional Court on August 14. Paetongtarn is the third member of the Shinawatra family to hold the job after Thaksin and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra.

On August 15, the parties in the coalition government agreed to back Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn to be selected as the candidate for prime minister.

Under Thailand's electoral law, a candidate for prime minister must win the support of more than half of the 493-member House of Representatives, or 247 votes or more. The 11-party ruling coalition led by Pheu Thai currently holds 314 seats in the House.

Paetongtarn, nicknamed “Ung-ing” by her family, was born in the US on August 21, 1986. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science, sociology and anthropology from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science in 2008 and earned a master’s in international hotel management from the University of Surrey in the UK.

Before entering politics, Paetongtarn was a major shareholder of the property giant SC Asset Corporation and a director of the Thaicom Foundation. She also held shares in approximately 20 other companies across the real estate, telecom and media sectors.

Source: VNA