The sister of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be a candidate for prime minister in Thailand's parliamentary election in July.
Officials say businesswoman Yingluck Shinawatra was nominated to run for the post at a meeting Monday of the opposition Puea Thai party, whose exiled former leader remains popular with many of the party's rank and file.
A victory by Yingluck in what is expected to be a closely fought election would be a stinging rebuke for the ruling Democrat party, which has long sought Mr. Thaksin's arrest on corruption charges.
Mr. Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006, sparking a prolonged period of instability in which the courts forced two successive governments to resign. Red Shirt demonstrators, most of them Thaksin supporters, tied up areas of central Bangkok for weeks last year before being dispersed in military action that ended with more than 90 people dead.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
