Yingluck Shinawatra , Prime Minister Thailand First Most Beautiful
The 44-year-old potential prime minister doesn’t scream into the microphone. She coos.
At rural campaign stops, Yingluck addresses supporters like a concerned sibling. Do you have enough money, brothers and sisters? Are you struggling to get by? Have the past few years left you unhappy?
Just over a month ago, Yingluck was the obscure younger sister of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, famously deposed in a 2006 military coup. Despite living in self-imposed exile in Dubai, he still effectively controls the Pheu Thai party.
Yingluck is there to marshal the Thaksin faithful - the many millions who still want their former leader back - and to woo the undecided with a new look attached to an old name. She is mobilizing that base through democratic elections as opposed to the prolonged - sometimes bloody - street protests that Thailand has witnessed in recent years.
That could give Thaksin a basis on which to bargain a future role in the country, despite a two-year jail sentence for a conflict of interest conviction.
Yingluck is the ninth child in a highly political family. She has two degrees in politics - undergraduate from the northern city of Chiang Mai, her family's powerbase, and masters from Kentucky State University in the US.
Until now, she has pursued a corporate career, formerly as managing director of AIS, the telecommunications firm her brother founded, and managing director of SC Asset Company, a family firm involved in property.
In her bid to become Thailand's first female prime minister, Yingluck said she planned to use her attributes as a woman to promote national reconciliation and asked for the chance to prove herself.
At rural campaign stops, Yingluck addresses supporters like a concerned sibling. Do you have enough money, brothers and sisters? Are you struggling to get by? Have the past few years left you unhappy?
Just over a month ago, Yingluck was the obscure younger sister of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, famously deposed in a 2006 military coup. Despite living in self-imposed exile in Dubai, he still effectively controls the Pheu Thai party.
Yingluck is there to marshal the Thaksin faithful - the many millions who still want their former leader back - and to woo the undecided with a new look attached to an old name. She is mobilizing that base through democratic elections as opposed to the prolonged - sometimes bloody - street protests that Thailand has witnessed in recent years.
That could give Thaksin a basis on which to bargain a future role in the country, despite a two-year jail sentence for a conflict of interest conviction.
Yingluck is the ninth child in a highly political family. She has two degrees in politics - undergraduate from the northern city of Chiang Mai, her family's powerbase, and masters from Kentucky State University in the US.
Until now, she has pursued a corporate career, formerly as managing director of AIS, the telecommunications firm her brother founded, and managing director of SC Asset Company, a family firm involved in property.
In her bid to become Thailand's first female prime minister, Yingluck said she planned to use her attributes as a woman to promote national reconciliation and asked for the chance to prove herself.
