Yingluck Shinawatra

Yingluck Shinawatra is Thailand's 28th and first woman prime minister.On 16 May 2011, the Pheu Thai party nominated the 44-year-old businesswoman as their candidate for prime minister ahead of the July 3 general election. Yingluck had earlier declined the party leadership stating that she did not want to be PM as she wanted to focus on her business. But Yingluck's older brother and former premier Thaksin had already made the decision for her."Yingluck is my clone. She is my sister and can make decisions for me. She can say 'yes' or 'no' on my behalf," Thaksin noted in an interview. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 military coup backed by Thailand's elites. He is on a self imposed exile in Dubai.[caption id="attachment_55187" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Yingluck Shinawatra — Thailand's 28th and first woman prime minister. Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP"][/caption]Coming back to the July 2011 elections, the Pheu Thai party and its allies dethroned the ruling Democrats by winning a three-fifths majority in parliament. It marked only the second time in Thai political history that a single party won a parliamentary majority (first time was in 2005 with Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party).A total of 296 MPs voted in support of Yingluck, while three MPs voted against her, with 197 abstentions — including Yingluck, the House speaker, one of his deputies and the main opposition parties, the Democrat and Bhumjaithai parties.Yingluck was the only candidate. The Opposition did not nominate a candidate for the top job.PersonalBorn in Chiang Mai province, Yingluck earned her bachelor's degree from Chiang Mai University and master's degree from Kentucky State University, both in public administration.Yingluck is the youngest of nine children of Lert and Yindee. She was given the nickname Pou (Thai: meaning "crab"). She started her career as a sales and marketing intern at Shinawatra Directories Co. Ltd, a telephone directory business founded by AT&T International.She has one son, Supasek, with her common-law husband, Anusorn Amornchat.2011 Election and rise to PremiershipYingluck's main campaign theme was reconciliation following the extended political turmoil from 2008 to 2010, culminating in the military crackdown on protesters 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.She laid down a 2020 vision for the elimination of poverty. She promised to reduce the corporate income tax from 30 percent to 23 percent and further to 20 percent by 2013. She also promised to raise the minimum wage to 300 baht per day and the minimum wage for university graduates to 15,000 baht per month.Her agricultural policies included improving operating cashflow to farmers and providing loans of up to 70 percent of expected income, based on a guaranteed rice price of 15,000 baht per ton. She also planned to provide free public Wi-Fi and a tablet PC to every schoolchild. Jayalalithaa anyone?In the end, the Pheu Thai won a massive 265 seats out of the 500-seat House of Representatives in the general election.The immediate challenge for the new prime minister is to bring stability to the kingdom, after five years of political crisis.