BANGKOK (The Nation/Asia News Network): Paetongtarn Shinawatra, one of Thailand’s leading PM candidates, gave the press a glimpse of her newborn son on Wednesday (May 3) – just two days after giving birth and less than two weeks before the national election.
Paetongtarn gave birth to her second child Prutthasin 'Thasin' Sooksawas on Monday and the occasion was announced on social media.
On Wednesday morning, the press gathered at the Praram 9 Hospital in Bangkok’s Huai Khwang district to catch sight of baby Prutthasin, who was carted out in an incubator for a brief photo opportunity with his mother, father, aunt and grandmother.
The baby had been delivered at the hospital.
A frontrunner for the opposition Pheu Thai Party, Paetongtarn has been leading opinion polls as a favourite PM candidate since campaigns began for the May 14 election.
Paetogtarn’s father, former telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, was toppled in a 2006 military coup and his sister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government was ousted by the military in 2014.
Both Thaksin and Yingluck live in self-imposed exile to avoid prison sentences that their allies say were designed to prevent a political comeback.