BANGKOK — With general elections just months away and its billionaire patriarch in prison, Thailand's embattled Pheu Thai party is turning to another member of the divisive Shinawatra family with little experience in politics to help mount a comeback.
Yodchanan Wongsawat, 46, the nephew and son of former prime ministers, is Pheu Thai's leading candidate for the top job in the Feb 8 general election.
"I'm the very small guy, but I'm on the shoulder of a giant," said Yodchanan, referring to the Shinawatra family, which has yielded four prime ministers in two decades, including his uncle, Thaksin Shinawatra and father, Somchai Wongsawat.
A dominating figure in contemporary Thai politics, Thaksin was jailed for one year in September for avoiding an initial prison sentence for conflict of interest and abuse of power while he was prime minister from 2001-2006.
Thaksin's daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was ousted as prime minister by a court order in August over a leaked June telephone call, during which she appeared to kowtow to Cambodia's powerful former leader Hun Sen — until recently a close Shinawatra family ally — when both countries were on the brink of an armed conflict. Fighting erupted weeks later and flared up again on Dec 8.
Pheu Thai's support has nosedived during the upheaval, and this month polled at only 11.04 per cent in a nationwide survey conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration, from 13.96 per cent in September and 28.05 per cent in March.
Thailand was plunged into an earlier-than-expected election season after Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul dissolved parliament earlier this month following a disagreement with the largest grouping in parliament, the opposition People's Party.
Yodchanan says he believes that Pheu Thai's political legacy, including populist policies like universal healthcare and cash handouts that won it years of support among people in the country's rural areas, can still help.
"We still believe we can win," he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "If we can translate (policies) and make the people know that vision, people would protect us."
An engineer by training with a PhD from the University of Texas in Arlington, Yodchanan spent most of his adult life in academia and is currently a professor in biomedical engineering at Bangkok's Mahidol University.
Although a political novice, having only served as an adviser on tech-related policies to the last Pheu Thai-led government, Yodchanan says he plans to bring his experience in managing complex scientific and multi-disciplinary projects to politics.
Over the decades, the Pheu Thai party has nominated political novices for prime minister and successfully propelled them into office including Yingluck Shinawatra in 2011, and Srettha Thavisin and Paetongtarn Shinawatra in 2023.
Amid the ongoing conflict with Cambodia and nationalist fervour, it is unclear whether the party would be able to distance itself from the Shinawatra family's once close links with Hun Sen.
Analysts say the next election could result in no clear majority for any of the parties contesting. Yodchanan indicated he was open to working in a coalition government.
"We want to win, obviously," he said, "but if we cannot, we can pair with the party that would have the same intention."
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