Thai Lawmakers Elect a New Prime Minister: What to Know About Anutin Charnvirakul

After a tumultuous few months marked by conflict with Cambodia and political maneuvering, Thailand has a new Prime Minister. Bhumjaithai Party leader Anutin Charnvirakul, who served as interior minister until June under the Pheu Thai-led coalition and as health minister in the previous military-led government, was twice a deputy prime minister before finally securing the top job on Friday. Anutin, 58, was elected to the premiership by 311 of 490 present House of Representatives lawmakers, a week after the Constitutional Court officially ordered the removal of Pheu Thai’s second Prime Minister in two years, Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Following more than two hours of debate before the roll call vote, Anutin defeated Pheu Thai’s last eligible candidate Chaikasem Nitisiri largely due to the backing of the progressive opposition People’s Party, which reached a deal that included Anutin’s commitment to dissolve the parliament within four months, which would force an early new general election. The People’s Party—the reincarnation of the dissolved Move Forward Party that won the most votes in Thailand’s 2023 election on a pro-democracy platform but was blocked from forming a government by populist, second-placed Pheu Thai, which partnered with conservative allies including Bhumjaithai at the time—controls nearly a third of the lower chamber and has insisted on remaining in the opposition, leaving Anutin with a minority ruling government that may find policymaking challenging. Anutin will be “constrained severely,” Mark S. Cogan, an associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Japan’s Kansai Gaidai University, tells TIME. Still, the election of a new premier, for now, may end a period of instability for Thailand and gives Anutin the chance to prove his leadership. Here’s what to know. What are Anutin’s policies? When they were coalition partners, Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai butted heads on several occasions, including on policy about cannabis, casinos, and coups. Ultimately, Bhumjaithai left the coalition in June amid disagreement over whether Anutin would get to continue as interior minister. While Bhumjaithai is generally seen as conservative, pro-military, and pro-monarchy, Anutin likely won the support of the People’s Party, says Cogan, because he seemed “more stable” than Pheu Thai, which had two premiers ousted in two years over ethics violations and had grown unpopular over its failures to deliver on economic campaign promises. Thailand under Anutin will try to depart from Pheu Thai’s failings as much as possible, says Cogan. This could involve a focus on infrastructure reforms and regional partnerships. Cogan said an Anutin government may also retract populist policies like Pheu Thai’s much-touted digital wallet scheme in lieu of a more pragmatic agenda. One policy area that may be a priority under Anutin, says Napon Jatusripitak, a visiting fellow and acting coordinator of the Thailand Studies Programme at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, is cannabis regulation. Anutin as health minister in the pre-2023 government pushed to decriminalize cannabis, while the Pheu Thai government tried to reverse that. One area that is unlikely to see any reform is Thailand’s controversial royal defamation law, given Anutin’s royalist leanings.  Overall, says Napon, Anutin’s government may lean into decentralization, potentially granting more authority or more funding to local governments to start building support for future elections.  For Bhumjaithai, Napon says, “it is always about, first and foremost, about local power brokers greasing the wheels of patronage.” What’s next for Thai politics? If Anutin keeps his word on dissolving the House of Representatives within four months, it will be a short-lived premiership. But he may choose not to acknowledge the deal. The People’s Party can try to boot Anutin with a no-confidence vote if they feel he is reneging on their deal, but they would need the support of Pheu Thai or other opposition parties to do so, and Cogan says the next few weeks could allow Anutin to “whip” a new majority coalition together, including parties that may have backed Pheu Thai in Friday’s vote.  “If he is truly the establishment pick, and the establishment sees that it’s not in its interest to hold a new election now,” says Napon, “then, of course, why go against it?”  Pheu Thai’s future could also impact Anutin’s: the party’s patriarch Thaksin Shinawatra, Paetongtarn’s father and a former Prime Minister who self-exiled for years before returning in 2023 and was widely viewed as protected from prosecution while his party was in power, abruptly fled to Dubai before Friday’s vote. He claims he’ll be back in time to appear in court for the verdict of a case that may land him in jail. “If next week the court rules against [Thaksin], that would make things a lot easier for Bhumjaithai and Anutin to buy more MPs from Pheu Thai,” says Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political scientist at Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani University, who notes to TIME that Anutin is likely to try to see out the demise of his former coalition partner that tried to stall his assumption to the top post. Titipol adds: “Four months might not be helpful to Bhumjaithai to work on certain policy, but it’s long enough to take revenge on Pheu Thai.”