From 'image-maker' to interim PM
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New caretaker Prime Minister Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan appeared to have been brought into the government to boost Yingluck Shinawatra's public image, while he was PM's Office minister in 2012. The new premier also holds the Commerce portfolio.
Now 66, he entered politics in 2011 as Pheu Thai’s party-list MP .
Before that, as an executive for IBM Thailand, Niwattumrong began building ties with former PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
He quit IBM in 1990 and became manager at a Thaksin-owned computer firm. He then moved up to become a deputy chief executive officer of Shin Corp before rising to CEO of iTV in 2001. He took up monkhood for three years after Thaksin bought iTV.
