Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s nephew, Assoc Prof Yodchanan Wongsawat, is the latest member of Thailand’s most famous political dynasty to vie for the country’s top job.
The Mahidol University biomedical engineering professor heads the list of Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidates for the general election, due on February 8. The other two candidates are party leader Julapun Amornvivat, 50, and veteran politician Suriya Jungrungreangkit, 71.
Yodchanan’s father, Somchai Wongsawat, was Thailand’s 26th prime minister, while his mother, Thaksin’s younger sister Yaowapa, is a former Chiang Mai MP. Yaowapa retains a strong influence in the party despite holding no executive positions.
The Shinawatra clan has now produced three prime ministers: Thaksin, his youngest sister Yingluck, and his daughter Paetongtarn.
Ready to fight ‘perfect storm’
Yodchanan remarked recently that Thailand is now caught in a “perfect storm” of economic, geopolitical, climate change and AI transition crises.
The 46-year-old wannabe PM also pledged to pull the country out of its decades-long middle-income trap.
“My goal is to elevate Thailand to high-income country status as fast as possible, using science, technology and AI as the key drivers,” he said at the party’s December 16 unveiling of prime ministerial candidates.
He added that Pheu Thai prime ministers had done their best to solve the country’s problems but struggled to make tangible impacts due to “frequent changes”.
The Thaksin and Yingluck administrations were ousted from office by military coups.
More recently, Pheu Thai’s Srettha Thavisin and Paetongtarn were removed by the Constitutional Court after barely a year in office for ethical breaches, leaving the party scrambling to restore its reputation ahead of the election.
Srettha was axed for appointing a minister with a previous conviction for corruption, while Paetongtarn was ousted in the scandal following her leaked conversation with Cambodian strongman Hun Sen over the border conflict.
Thaksin is currently serving a one-year jail sentence after the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Officeholders ruled that his 2023 detention in a luxury Police Hospital suite did not count as prison time.
Yodchanan said that if Pheu Thai is returned to power after the election, it would focus on national security, rebuilding confidence in the judiciary, ensuring governance transparency and modernising national infrastructure.
He said veterans from Thaksin’s old Thai Rak Thai Party have joined Pheu Thai to help their younger colleagues “rebuild the country”.
He was speaking amid reports that Pheu Thai MPs are defecting in numbers to other parties.
“This journey is not just for Pheu Thai. We must all come together to work on the country. Everyone from Thai Rak Thai who was denied justice [by being banned from politics after the party’s dissolution] has returned to join the new generation at Pheu Thai and help rebuild the country.”
Dismissing questions about his mother’s influence, Yodchanan said: “I’m confident I can make decisions by myself along with the party’s executive board.”
Expert in mind-machine links
Born on October 8, 1979, in the northern capital of Chiang Mai, Yodchanan earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Thammasat University in 2001. He then graduated with a master’s and a doctorate in the same field from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2003 and 2007, respectively.
In May 2008, he joined Mahidol University’s Faculty of Engineering, serving in turn as its deputy dean for research and international relations, vice president for research, and director of the Institute of Technology and Innovation Management.
As a biomedical engineering professor, Yodchanan’s research focused on technology linking the human brain with computers in applications such as robotic limbs.
His research earned academic honours, including the National Research Council of Thailand’s 2016 Inventor Award.
According to the Mahidol University website, Yodchanan also owns patents for several medical devices, including a brain-controlled wheelchair, brain-activated alarm clock and a device that controls electrical appliances using signals from the brain.
First brush with politics
Yodchanan made his political debut in the 2014 election, winning the MP seat in his hometown, a Pheu Thai stronghold. However, the Constitutional Court nullified the result after anti-government protesters blocked numerous polling booths across the country.
This January, under the government of his cousin Paetongtarn, Yodchanan was appointed to the Digital Government Development Agency’s management and human resources committee.
The June Cabinet reshuffle, triggered when Bhumjaithai pulled out of the coalition, saw Yodchanan tipped to become education minister – a rumour he swiftly dismissed.
