Exile, detention, then freedom. Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned to his home in Bangkok on Sunday morning, February 18, after benefiting from early release. The 74-year-old billionaire, in power from 2001 until the 2006 coup, was seen through his car windows, wearing a neck brace and sitting next to his daughter Paetongtarn, leaving the hospital police in central Bangkok. A handful of people protesting his release gathered in front of the facility.
Returning from exile on August 22, 2023 after fifteen years abroad, Thaksin spent a total of only six months in detention, largely in a police hospital in the Thai capital, due to health problems. health. He was admitted to hospital just hours after returning from exile with chest tightness and high blood pressure, and his family said he underwent two operations in the following months. On Saturday, the prime minister Srettha Thavisin had confirmed that he would be released on Sunday.
Ultra-popular in the early 2000s, especially among peasants in the North and Northeast, he is suspected of having concluded a pact with his former adversaries, the monarchy and the army, to regain freedom. Initially sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption and abuse of power, the former leader benefited from a pardon from King Maha Vajiralongkorn in September which reduced his sentence to one year of imprisonment.
An old lion of Thai politics
At the beginning of February, the authorities announced that the detainee met the conditions for early release, due to his age and state of health. The framework for Mr. Shinawatra’s conditional release is not yet known, but he could have to wear an electronic bracelet or limit his travel, according to an expert interviewed Tuesday by Agence France-Presse.
Thaksin Shinawatra is an old lion of Thai political life, who maintains influence through the family party, Pheu Thai, led by Paetongtarn, expected to continue the dynasty. She could become the third prime minister to bear the name Shinawatra, after Thaksin and Yingluck, her aunt (and Thaksin’s sister) who ruled the kingdom from 2011 to 2014, until a coup.
The mention of this surname awakens old fractures in Thailand. Thaksin Shinawatra was as much adored by the countryside, thanks to his pioneering redistribution policies, as he was hated by the traditional elites of Bangkok, who found him populist and insolent towards King Bhumibol. If he has been credited with good management of the economy, the leader, who made his fortune in telecommunications, has often been accused of mixing his private affairs with those of the State, to the point of having been nicknamed by some “the Berlusconi of Asia”.
Government coalition
Tensions peaked during the protest movements between his supporters, “the red shirts”, and his opponents attached to the monarchy, “the yellow shirts”. In 2010, the army opened fire on a red shirt protest, killing more than 90 people.
Some long-time supporters now criticize their former champion for having reached out to the military to encourage his return to the country after fifteen years of voluntary exile to escape justice. Indeed, Pheu Thai agreed to form a government coalition with pro-army groups which could not have claimed power following their large defeat in the 2023 elections.
This controversial agreement excluded the winning party from the election, the reformists of Move Forward, who had become the main protest force in the eyes of new generations, in place of the Shinawatra. Thaksin Shinawatra is also the subject of lese majeste charges for comments made in 2015, but Thai justice has not yet decided what action to take in this case.