Exiled PM’s daughter determined to ‘seize the reins’ in Thai elections

Back on the campaign trail just days after giving birth, Paetongtarn Shinawatra is confident of a landslide victory

Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s face beamed from the side of a campaign truck as she addressed crowds of her supporters. “I am happy I have the chance to talk to you, Chiang Mai people,” she said last month. “It’s too bad I could not be there in person.”

Then eight-and-a-half months pregnant, Paetongtarn, 36, who is running to become Thailand’s next prime minister, has been unable to travel during the final leg of election campaigning. Instead, in a red jacket, the trademark colour of her Pheu Thai party, she video-called her supporters in Chiang Mai, in the north, from a hospital in Bangkok.