Young leader eyes premiership

People's Party PM candidate Natthaphong is promising reforms to the economy, bureaucracy and democratic governance, writes Aekarach Sattaburuth

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Natthaphong: Entered parliament as a Bangkok MP in 2019

Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, the country's youngest opposition leader, has declared his readiness to become prime minister, positioning his People's Party as a vehicle for national transformation.

Mr Natthaphong, widely known as “Teng”, has become a defining figure of an emerging political generation. He is the youngest politician to have served as Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives, a role he assumed at 37 before parliament was dissolved in December 2025.

Born on May 18, 1987, in Songkhla, Mr Natthaphong is the fourth son of Suchart Ruengpanyawut, a property developer and managing director of Chanuntorn Development Group. He graduated with a degree in computer engineering from Chulalongkorn University. Before entering politics, he worked in the private sector as an executive at a cloud solutions provider, an experience that later shaped his emphasis on technology-driven governance and state efficiency.

His parliamentary career began in 2019, when he was elected as a Bangkok MP under the now-dissolved Future Forward Party. He later won a party-list seat in the 2023 election with the Move Forward Party. Following the Constitutional Court's decision to dissolve the party and ban its executive committee, Mr Natthaphong emerged as a central figure in the reconstituted People's Party, eventually becoming its leader.

Mr Natthaphong has framed his leadership bid as a response to what he calls a systemic national deadlock.

“The old way of governing, the old way of forming governments, cannot move the country forward,” he said.

He said Thailand faces simultaneous crises, economic stagnation, political polarisation, declining competitiveness and widening inequality, which cannot be solved through incremental adjustments.