The early release of once-fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra represents to many a deal the influential billionaire made with his enemies to counter an even greater threat to the royalist-military establishment.
To some observers of Thailand’s convoluted politics, Thaksin’s parole after returning from self-imposed exile in August last year was the latest act in an elaborate effort to crush the hugely popular anti-establishment Move Forward party that finished first in last year’s election.
Move Forward, which advocates institutional reforms including some involving the monarchy, was blocked from forming a government by a Senate appointed by a junta that seized power in 2014 coup against a government led by Thaksin’s Pheu Thai party.
Three months later, Pheu Thai — which during the election campaign had shared Move Forward’s platform of ending military dominance of politics — formed its own coalition government that included some of the very figures involved in the 2014 coup.
The same day, Thaksin, 74, flew back to Thailand on a private jet and surrendered to authorities on various criminal convictions in absentia. He complained of chest pains and was transferred to a police hospital, where he remained until Sunday, the first day he was eligible for parole.
“His comeback has to do with the deal he made with the establishment,” said Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political scientist at Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani University.
Reuters requests for comments on Monday went unanswered. Thaksin’s family, party and Thai authorities all say there was no such quid pro quo, but many analysts are unconvinced.
One reason is that while Thaksin’s pro-business agenda posed challenges to Thailand’s patronage system, Move Forward’s anti-establishment proposals went much further.
The party even dared to propose amending (but not abolishing) Thailand’s strict laws against criticising the monarchy that carry penalties of up to 15 years in prison.
“Thaksin is flexible, he’s a dealmaker,” Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow for Southeast Asia Joshua Kurlantzik said. “He’s much less of an existential threat than Move Forward, and he’s shown that now by almost surely making a deal … and then doing what the establishment wants.”
Thaksin himself was once seen as the biggest threat to Thailand’s establishment — a loose alliance of the military and entrenched business elites who often cite as their ultimate legitimacy their loyalty to the monarchy, considered sacrosanct by many and commanded by the constitution to be upheld in reverence.
When Thaksin burst onto the political scene with his populist party to win elections in 2001, he expanded spending on healthcare, rural development and farming subsidies, but was soon accused of corruption, carrying out extrajudicial killings in a controversial drug war and amassing a personal power base.
Crucially, he also faced accusations that he was undermining the monarchy, which he denied. On Monday, Thaksin met prosecutors to discuss a years-old royal insult complaint.
In 2006, the military leveraged middle-class anger and mass demonstrations to stage a bloodless coup when Thaksin was abroad, but his loyalists kept winning elections.
More than a decade of pro-Thaksin “Red Shirt” and anti-Thaksin “Yellow Shirt” protests paralysed Thailand until the 2014 coup — also against a pro-Thaksin government.
Two things changed to allow Thaksin the opening to return, analysts say.
The first was the strong showing in the vote of Move Forward’s predecessor in the 2019 elections, which nevertheless resulted in a government dominated by military-allied parties because of the junta-appointed Senate’s votes.
After that party, called Future Forward, was dissolved by a court ruling, its founder banned from politics and charged with royal insult, student protests in 2020 began to spread — eventually swelling to tens of thousands.
Unlike other protest movements, the students began openly questioning some long-held underpinnings of Thai society — including the military repeatedly seizing power in the name of protecting the crown.
Later, some even criticised the king himself. Scores of those protesters have since been prosecuted under lese-majeste laws.
However, the open questioning of some of Thailand’s most traditional institutions could not be undone and even made it onto the political platform of the reconstituted Move Forward in last year’s elections.
When Move Forward won the most seats in those elections, it led to months of deadlock in parliament. The military-appointed Senate, as expected, refused to vote in a Move Forward-led government. No other political party would join Move Forward — citing its stated willingness to even consider changing laws protecting the monarchy.
Move Forward’s refusal to abandon its proposal to amend the royal insults law outraged conservatives and military-backed lawmakers closed ranks to prevent it from forming a government.
Analysts pointed to the fact that Thaksin did not spend a single night in prison as an indicator some kind of deal was likely made during those months.
“Thaksin needed the help of the ‘establishment’ to return to Thailand without going to prison,” Naresuan University Center of ASEAN Community Studies senior adviser Paul Chambers said.
“The establishment needed Thaksin’s Pheu Thai party to help prevent the Move Forward party from coming to office without having to resort to another military coup,” he said.
Political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak said the newly organised establishment had effectively co-opted its one-time enemy to prevent the rise of another.
“Thaksin now has become more like a pawn rather than a mastermind,” he said.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
The bird flu outbreak at US dairy farms keeps finding alarming new ways to surprise scientists. Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that H5N1 is spreading not just from birds to herds, but among cows. Meanwhile, media reports say that an unknown number of cows are asymptomatic. Although the risk to humans is still low, it is clear that far more work needs to be done to get a handle on the reach of the virus and how it is being transmitted. That would require the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get
For the incoming Administration of President-elect William Lai (賴清德), successfully deterring a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack or invasion of democratic Taiwan over his four-year term would be a clear victory. But it could also be a curse, because during those four years the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will grow far stronger. As such, increased vigilance in Washington and Taipei will be needed to ensure that already multiplying CCP threat trends don’t overwhelm Taiwan, the United States, and their democratic allies. One CCP attempt to overwhelm was announced on April 19, 2024, namely that the PLA had erred in combining major missions
On April 11, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivered a speech at a joint meeting of the US Congress in Washington, in which he said that “China’s current external stance and military actions present an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge … to the peace and stability of the international community.” Kishida emphasized Japan’s role as “the US’ closest ally.” “The international order that the US worked for generations to build is facing new challenges,” Kishida said. “I understand it is a heavy burden to carry such hopes on your shoulders,” he said. “Japan is already standing shoulder to shoulder