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Thai politics

NYT Yingluck profile

The New York Times has a profile of Thai Prime Minister Elect Yingluck Shinawatra that includes some interesting details.

From the lede:

The first woman in this country of 65 million to hold the top political job, Ms. Yingluck is enjoying a rare luxury in the often macho world of Thai politics, floating above the political snake pit and dismissing prickly questions with her winning smile.

Yet Ms. Yingluck, 44, who has never held political office before, is also one of the least experienced leaders to emerge in a major Asian country in decades. A politician’s rapid rise to power is often called meteoric. But space rocks travel too slowly to describe Ms. Yingluck’s apparition in Thai politics.

Her political career spans about 80 days.

And:

Supporters of Pheu Thai say they admire the corporate successes of the Shinawatra family and see Ms. Yingluck as in touch with markets and the business world at large. In a country that reveres beauty, voters also appeared to have been charmed by Ms. Yingluck’s good looks. (One writer in The Bangkok Post, who was analyzing Ms. Yingluck’s hairstyle, waxed poetic: “That side part perfectly grazes your ear like a young lamb gently skipping over a meadow,” the author wrote.)

And there’s this, on the Kentucky connection:

In the 1970s, Mr. Thaksin obtained a master’s degree in criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University. A decade and a half later, Ms. Yingluck got a masters in public administration an hour’s drive away, at Kentucky State University, a historically black institution amid horse farms and rolling hills.

(Felicia Lewis, a spokeswoman for Kentucky State, said the university was preparing a letter of congratulations for what may be its most famous alumna. “It’s a big deal here,” Ms. Lewis said.)

(All emphasis mine.)

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