BANGKOK — Thailand's Pheu Thai party has chosen 37-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of billionaire ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra, as its candidate for prime minister, it announced on Thursday, a day after a court dismissed the incumbent premier in an ethics case.

"We decide to nominate Paetongtarn Shinawatra," party secretary general Sorawong Thienthong told a press conference in Bangkok.

Lawmakers will vote Friday in parliament — where Pheu Thai heads a governing coalition — on whether to approve Paetongtarn as prime minister.

The vote comes after Thailand's Constitutional Court sacked premier Srettha Thavisin on Wednesday after ruling he had breached regulations by appointing a cabinet minister with a criminal conviction.

Srettha was the third prime minister from Pheu Thai to be kicked out by the Constitutional Court and leaves office after less than a year.

Thai politics has endured two decades of chronic instability marked by coups, street protests and court orders.

Much of it has been fueled by the long-running battle by the military and pro-royalist establishment against progressive parties linked to Thaksin.

Pheu Thai party leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra, known by her nickname 'Ung Ing' and the youngest daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, gestures during a press conference as she is named the candidate to be Thailand's next prime minister at Shinawatra Tower in Bangkok on August 15, 2024. AFP PHOTO