On the one-year anniversary of a bloody confrontation between Red Shirt protesters and Thai government security forces that left scores dead and Bangkok in flames, the opposition Pheu Thai party listed 10 Red Shirt leaders among its candidates for parliament in national elections scheduled for July 3. But the controversy over Red Shirt leaders running for office was overshadowed by the party’s choice for its lead candidate: Yingluck Shinawatra, who Pheu Thai hopes will become Thailand’s first woman Prime Minister, should the party prevail at the polls.
Thailand’s first female candidate for Prime Minister drew mixed reactions, however, from Thai women’s groups. “There are as many opinions about her candidacy among women’s groups as there are women’s groups,” says Maytinee Bhongsvej of the Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women, a nongovernmental organization. While some are thrilled that a woman will finally have the chance to win the highest elected office in the land, others are disquieted because the 43-year-old businesswoman has no political experience. Her sole qualification for the nation’s top job is that she is the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister deposed in a bloodless coup in 2006, and who is Pheu Thai’s de facto leader.
