Prime minister of Thailand and daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra. She got the job largely on account of her family name; in office for less than a year, she often looked green. Her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted by the courts in 2014; a coup ensued two weeks later.
Ms Paetongtarn was suspended from her duties by the Constitutional Court in mid-2025, pending further inquiries. A petition argued she had violated ethics rules in a phone call with Hun Sen, Cambodia's former prime minister. In the leaked recording she was heard criticising the Thai army commander and called Mr Hun Sen "uncle", a term of endearment in Asia. Her predecessor was also turfed out for breaching vague "ethics" rules.
Her governing coalition lost its second-largest party in mid-2025, leaving a majority of just six in the 500-seat lower house. Her deputy, Phumtham Wechayachai, served as caretaker. During the July 2025 border war with Cambodia, the Shinawatras dared not look weak following the phone-call scandal and backed the army to the hilt.
Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker with `programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications).