Thai former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva must be fit to be tied.
Why? Because Thailand’s prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, is Forbes‘ 31st most powerful woman in the world. Yes, that’s right. Yingluck Shinawatra has been named in the Forbes magazine Most Powerful Women in the World list and she is at number 31.
In actual fact, Yingluck has fallen one position on the list as she was ranked at number 30 last year. Still, it is quite a good result for a prime minister who has one of the most vocal and active oppositions in the world (namely never-stops-talking-about-Yingluck Abhisit Vejjajiva and his equally mouthy co-hort Suthep Thaugsuban) and has still not only managed to survive as prime minister but stay on the Forbes list as well.
Personally, I am not a particular fan of Yingluck Shinawatra as, under her, censorship in Thailand has increased even more than under Abhisit, and censorship under him was at one of the highest levels ever.
Still, you have to admire a woman that can fend off the constant verbal attacks coming at her from the right, do her job, meet and charm world leaders and, yes, keep Thailand’s economy stable.
As for Forbes, they say the reason Yingluck is at number 31 on the World’s Most Powerful Women list is because she is:
The PM of one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies has succeeded at keeping a fragile peace between the country’s color-coded political enemies: Democrats (“yellow shirts”), associated with monarchists, and Pheu Thai party (“red shirts”), with a base of farmers and the working class.
They also state Yingluck asking Malaysia for help in an attempt to deal with Muslim insurgents down south is a good thing, and cite her promise to “outlaw Thailand’s domestic ivory trade” as being, well……promising.
I think Forbes is probably giving her a bit more credit than she is due in that last sentence, as few people think she will do anything about the illegal ivory trade in Thailand.
But, she has been surprisingly effective in many things she has attempted so far.