Seek Unity Thaksin's Sister Pheu Thai Party won a landslide victory in Thailand's parliamentary elections.
Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra, whose brother was ousted from the prime minister post by a 2006 military coup, is set to become Thailand’s first female leader after a vote that marks a significant political comeback for Mr. Thaksin.
The Democrat Party, which has led a coalition government for more than than three years, will be in opposition.
The woman poised to become Thailand's first female prime minister acknowledged huge challenges in reconciling the divided country, after an election landslide seen as a rebuke of the military-backed establishment that ousted her brother in a 2006 coup.
The victory comes one year after the government crushed protests by Thaksin supporters with a bloody crackdown that culminated some of the worst violence here in 20 years and ended with parts of the capital ablaze in a wave of arson attacks allegedly carried out by fleeing protesters.
The photogenic Yingluck is widely considered the proxy of her brother, who has called her "my clone." Thaksin, who was ousted as prime minister after being accused of corruption and showing disrespect to the nation's much-revered king, was barred from politics in 2007 and convicted on graft charges the next year. He lives in exile in Dubai.
On Monday, incumbent Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva resigned as leader of the outgoing ruling party, Democrat Party spokesman Buranaj Smutharaks told The Associated Press.
The struggle pits the marginalized rural poor who hailed Thaksin's populism against an elite establishment bent on defending the status quo that sees Thaksin as a corrupt autocrat.
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