Real estate mogul Srettha Thavisin has won the backing of Thailand’s Parliament to become prime minister, paving the way for a new coalition government after weeks of uncertainty.

Srettha, who was thrust into the spotlight just a few months ago by the populist Pheu Thai Party, secured the support of more than half of the legislature on Tuesday.

Just hours earlier the party’s billionaire figurehead Thaksin Shinawatra made a historic homecoming after years as a fugitive in self-imposed exile.

Political neophyte Srettha, a former president of property developer Sansiri, will be tasked with forming and holding together a potentially fragile coalition that will include parties backed by the royalist military, which overthrew Pheu Thai governments in 2006 and 2014 coups.

Among those ousted was former telecoms tycoon and Premier League football club owner Thaksin, who fled into exile and was jailed in absentia in 2008 for abuse of power and conflicts of interest. A government led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted in a coup in 2014.

Thaksin, 74, received a rapturous reception upon his return from supporters at a Bangkok airport, before being escorted by police to the Supreme Court and then to a jail to serve a sentence of eight years.

The return of Thailand’s most famous politician and Srettha’s smooth ascent to the top job will add to speculation that Thaksin may have done a deal with his enemies in the military and establishment to allow his safe return, and possibly an early release from jail.

Thaksin and Pheu Thai have denied that.

Tuesday’s events were the latest twist in a nearly two-decade power struggle between Pheu Thai, which has won five elections, and a nexus of conservatives, generals and old money families that have long wielded influence on politics and the economy.

-AAP