BANGKOK, March 19 (Reuters) – Weeks before Thailand’s February general election, Anutin Charnvirakul stood at a rally in the capital Bangkok and declared that his Bhumjaithai Party should be the automatic choice for any patriotic Thai.
“I promise to you all that I will safeguard Thailand with my life,” the 59-year-old prime minister said. “Just choose Bhumjaithai to guard the country, to help safeguard all of our land.”
The stump speech captured Anutin’s strategy of riding a wave of nationalism washing through Thailand in the wake of a fierce border conflict with Cambodia last year – a gamble that paid off.
Bhumjaithai won 191 seats in the 500-member parliament, trouncing the progressive People’s Party, and then cobbled together a coalition of 16 parties – including the populist Pheu Thai – that together hold 292 seats.
The alliance voted in parliament on Thursday to re-elect Anutin as prime minister, making him the first Thai premier to be voted back to office in two decades, underlining the political instability that has long plagued Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.
A veteran operator, once best known for championing Thailand’s legalisation of cannabis in 2022, Anutin manoeuvred into the prime minister’s office with a minority government following his predecessor’s ouster by a court order last August.
“Nationalism is in the heart of everybody in the Bhumjaithai party,” he told reporters as the results trickled in last month. “Our people have given us more than what we expected.”
