Government
New cabinet sworn in Thailand
The new Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Bangkok. photo
© Sakchai Lalit/AP/dpa
After months of political turmoil, a new cabinet is sworn in under Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Thailand. Actually someone else won the election.
Almost four months after the general election in Thailand’s new cabinet of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was sworn in in Bangkok. Srettha and his 34 ministers took their oath of office before King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Tuesday afternoon. There are five women in the cabinet. Srettha will also take on the post of finance minister. The 60-year-old from the Pheu Thau party was elected the new prime minister by parliament two weeks ago after a difficult government formation.
Srettha has succeeded Prayuth Chan-ocha. The former general had been in power since 2014, when he overthrew the previous Pheu Thai government in a coup.
Months of political and legal wrangling preceded the election of Srettha, which had put a strain on the economy of the popular holiday destination. In order to come to power, Pheu Thai broke away from Pita Limjaroenrat’s progressive Move Forward Party (MFP), which actually won the parliamentary elections in May.
Pita, the hope of the democracy movement, had previously been repeatedly rejected by conservative senators as a candidate for the prime minister. The reason for this was his plan to change the extremely strict lèse-majesté law. As a result, Pheu Thai, which came second in the general election, booted out the MFP and instead formed an alliance with the conservatives it had fought in the election campaign. Critics spoke of a betrayal of the election results.