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Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned from years of exile to face prison as parliament broke months of deadlock by picking a candidate from Thaksin’s Pheu Thai Party as the country’s next president. leader.
Sretha Thavisin was elected prime minister, ending nearly a decade of military leadership in the Southeast Asian country, which the Progressive Party won in elections in May.
However, the “March Forward” movement was blocked by Thailand’s conservative military royalist establishment and struck a deal with a former rival in Thaksin’s party to appoint Sreita as prime minister.
The parliamentary vote came hours after Thaksin Shinawatra, the charismatic billionaire deposed in a 2006 coup, arrived from Singapore and was greeted by crowds of supporters.
Thaksin, who has lived in Dubai since leaving Thailand in 2008, has dominated politics for two decades. He was reviled by the royalist military establishment but admired by rural and working-class voters for his pro-poor policies.
The 74-year-old was convicted in absentia on corruption and abuse of power charges and later appeared in the Supreme Court, where a judge confirmed his eight-year prison sentence, according to a court statement.
Officials say he will be transferred to a special unit to monitor his health, but few observers expect the former prime minister to spend a long time behind bars.
“Thaksin has to come back to regain some popularity [for the party],’ said Paul Chambers, an expert on Thai politics at Naresuan University. “Phaeu Thai is now the status quo party. “
“Thaksin has lost the moral high ground,” he added.
Supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra await his return in Bangkok on Tuesday © Wason Wanichakorn/AP
Pheu Thai, which came second in the election, has formed an unconventional 11-party coalition that includes the military-backed incumbent People’s Power Party and the Thai Unity Party. The latter is led by outgoing Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, a former military chief who has held power since the 2014 coup that toppled Thaksin’s sister Yingluck.
Pheu Thai has previously pledged support for the Forward movement, which grew out of anti-monarchy protests in 2020 and won a landslide victory in May, shocking the political elite by promising massive reforms to the military and the monarchy .
But Forward has failed to attract enough partners to form a government, partly because it has vowed to change an insult to the monarch law, which carries up to 15 years in prison for insulting the monarchy.
Thailand’s next prime minister, Sretha Thavisin, a former real estate tycoon, joined the Thai party ahead of general elections in March © Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters
Unelected senators picked by the former military junta blocked the election of party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, 42, a US-educated senator, in last month’s vote Prime Minister. He was later barred from running for the post again and barred from parliament pending an investigation into his ownership of a stake in a defunct TV broadcaster.
The gamble to bring back power for Pheu Thai is likely to spark a public backlash. A poll released by the National Development Administration on Sunday found that nearly 65 percent of respondents disapproved of the party’s cooperation with military-backed groups.
Sretha, the former head of the Sansiri party, one of the country’s largest property developers, denied on Monday that the party had “misled” supporters, despite vowing ahead of the election not to form with a military-backed party alliance.
Pheu Thai needs to “acknowledge the harsh realities and make hard choices to make progress and help the people,” he said.
After nearly a decade of military rule, the next government will face considerable challenges, including revitalizing Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, which has struggled to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and grew just 1.8% year-on-year in the second quarter. Household debt has soared to more than 90 percent of gross domestic product.
Thitinan Ponsudira, a senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Security and International Studies, said Thaksin’s return had come at a “very high price” for the party. Its supporters “were shot dead by the military, while Pheu Thai is joining forces with the military to form a government”. . . Just to get Thaksin back.”
He added that Thaksin “would very much like to come back”. “This may be his last chance. Who knows when and under what conditions he will come back in the future.”
