BANGKOK—The people of Thailand ushered in a new era Sunday: electing a new government, anointing a new leader — the country’s first female Prime Minister — and showing the country’s ruling establishment that ballots can trump bullets.

The victory of Yingluck Shinawatra and her Pheu Thai party was a stunning rebuke to the incumbent Thai government and its military, who last year used live ammunition to put down a protest by opposition Red Shirt supporters, leaving 91 dead.

But it was also a clear triumph for Yingluck’s billionaire brother, the deposed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a military coup in 2006.

Sunday’s victory demonstrated, that even from the distance of Dubai where he lives in self-imposed exile, Thaksin still has a hold on the people’s imagination.

Thaksin, 62, funded the Red Shirt movement, helped found the Pheu Thai party and selected his youngest sister, Yingluck — a 43-year-old woman who had no previous political experience — to lead it to victory.

She did that with style and vigor, becoming a campaign sensation overnight and securing a majority government.

Looking like some Thai version of the Statue of Liberty during the campaign, she moved through countless cities and villages with her right arm held high and index finger pointing skyward, indicating the party’s position on the ballot sheet: Number one.

She was personable, persuasive and positive — she never attacked her adversaries — and was filled with optimism about the future.

People warmed to her immediately.

With 97 per cent of ballots counted, Yingluck Shinawatra’s party was headed to a clear majority with 264 seats in the 500-member Parliament.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrats, meanwhile, managed to muster an embarrassingly low 160 seats.

The only question that remains now is how the Thai military, the monarchy and the country’s rich, ruling elites will react to the Pheu Thai victory.

The Pheu Thai win has sent a clear message that the country’s common people want a fairer share of Thailand’s developing wealth — as well as a say in how the country is run.

At Sunday’s victory celebration, the mood was ecstatic.

“This is a good day for democracy and a great day for Thailand,” shouted 55-year-old jewelry maker Isariya Sirthum, as celebrations erupted inside campaign headquarters.

“The Red Shirts protected the ballot boxes today,” she said. “Now they’ll protect the Pheu Thai party.”

People chanted, sang, danced and wore stickers on their faces that bore a cartoon image of their party leader and soon-to-be-minted Prime Minister.

In her brief victory address, Yingluck stressed that there was still important work to do as the Thai people set out on their “collective journey towards genuine reconciliation.”

She spoke of building “a solid foundation for a flourishing nation.”

And she committed herself to following through on her campaign promises that will introduce a new minimum wage, invest in public transport and urban infrastructure, and bring digital tablets to the nation’s children.

She was every bit as poised and polished as she had been on the campaign trail.

While Thaksin had once referred to her in an interview as his “clone,” Yingluck, with degrees in political science and public administration, seemed very much her own person, comfortable in her skin.

Earlier in the day in what was something of a surprise, Prime Minister Abhisit conceded the election early and graciously.

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“It is now clear from the election results so far that the Pheu Thai party has won the election, and the Democrat Party concedes defeat,” Abhisit said on national television.

“I will give the chance to Yingluck, the first woman to form a government,” he said.

He stressed he too wanted unity and reconciliation, and said the Democrats were ready to assume their duties as official opposition.

But Abhisit would not say what role, if any, he would play. That announcement would come later, he said.

It was a far humbler Prime Minister than the one people saw on the campaign trail. There he and his party had endlessly harped on the dangers of Thaksin Shinawatra’s return to Thailand should Pheu Thai win.

His Democrat party conducted a mainly negative campaign that seemed to backfire, attacking Pheu Thai and its Red Shirt supporters as “communists” and “terrorists” and blaming the Red Shirts exclusively for the carnage on the streets of Bangkok last spring.

One Democrat poster seemed to capture the party’s attitude towards the opposition perfectly: it showed an enormous photograph of central Bangkok burning.

“Extinguish the fire,” the caption urged voters.

Abhisit had publicly insisted that not a single person had been killed or injured by government gunfire, even as eyewitness accounts and bloody news videos proliferated.

Many noted that the Red Shirts too had a small contingent of heavily armed “men in black,” but note that they were clearly outgunned by a modern military equipped with tanks, assault rifles, grenades and soldiers in their thousands.

In a Thai television interview, Thaksin himself tried to alleviate fears that he was poised to return to Thailand.

“Yes,” he admitted, “I really want to be home — as of yesterday. But everything has to comply with proper conditions. I don’t want to be a problem. If I go back, I have to be part of the solution, part of the answer,” he said.

With files from Chandler Vandergrift

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