Thailand's Pheu Thai party will nominate Chaikasem Nitisiri as its candidate for prime minister, after Prime Minister Phatthongthayn Shinawatra was removed by a court order, a party official said on Monday, Reuters reported.
Chaikasem (77) is a lawyer and former state prosecutor with a long legal career in the bureaucracy before becoming justice minister in 2013.
Thailand's Constitutional Court on Tuesday dismissed Prime Minister Phayetongtarn Shinawatra for ethical violations after just a year in power, dealing another blow to the Shinawatra political dynasty and potentially paving the way for a new period of turmoil.
Paetongtarn, who was the youngest prime minister in Thailand's history, became the sixth prime minister from or with the support of the billionaire Shinawatra family to be removed from power by the military or the judiciary in a two-decade power struggle between the country's rival elites.
The ruling said Paetongtarn violated ethical standards in a leaked June phone call in which she allegedly showed condescension to Cambodia's former leader Hun Sen, at a time when both countries were on the brink of armed conflict on the border. Fighting broke out a few weeks later and lasted five days.
The decision paves the way for parliament to elect a new prime minister, which could be a lengthy process, given that the ruling Pheu Thai party under Paetongtarn has lost negotiating power and faces the challenge of preserving a fragile coalition with a narrow majority.
This ruling prematurely ended the mandate of the daughter and political disciple of influential tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, who is also a citizen of Montenegro.
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