Yingluck Shinawatra poised to become Thailand’s First Female Prime Minister

Thailand's Prime Minister-elect, Yingluck Shinawatra, on 4 July 2011 formed a coalition consisting of five parties under the wings of her own Pheu Thai Party following her landslide victory in parliamentary elections in Thailand. The grouping of five constituent parties would have 299 seats in the 500 member new house. Her Pheu Thai Party bagged 265 seats in the final tally and stood in no compulsion to form a coalition. With her landslide victory she is poised to become Thailand’s first female prime minister.

Yingluck Shinawatra was born on 21 June 1967. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, Chiang Mai University in 1988 and earned a master's degree in Public Administration (specialization in Mgt Info Systems) from Kentucky State University in 1991.

She is the leader of the Pheu Thai Party of Thailand. She was endorsed by veteran politician Chalerm Ubumrung. On 16 May 2011, the Pheu Thai party voted to name Yingluck as the party's top candidate under the party list system for parliamentary election scheduled for 3 July. She had initially showed no interest in becoming Prime Minister and became an executive in the businesses founded by her elder brother, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Yingluck's main campaign theme was reconciliation following the 2010 crackdown on protestors by military which left nearly a hundred protesters dead and thousands injured. She promised to empower the Independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (ITRC), the panel that the Democrat Party-led government had set up to investigate the killings. Yingluck described a 2020 vision for the elimination of poverty.  She had also promised to reduce the corporate income tax from 30% to 23% and then 20% by 2013 and to raise the minimum wage to 300 baht per day and the minimum wage for university graduates to 15000 baht per month.

After the governing People’s Power party was banned on 2 December 2008 by the Constitutional Court, former MPs established the Pheu Thai Party. Yingluck was asked to become the leader of the party but she declined following which Yongyuth Wichaidit became the leader of the party.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva resigned as leader of his Democrat Party, acknowledging personal responsibility for the defeat of the ruling coalition in the election held on 3 July 2011.