Thailand’s Anutin returns to power with broad backing and nationalist push

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.”