After 15 years of self-imposed exile, ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to return to Thailand on Tuesday, despite the risk of being jailed upon his arrival, the day a new vote in parliament is due to appoint the next leader of the government.
The return of the 74-year-old billionaire, to power between 2001 and 2006 before being overthrown by the army during a putsch which provoked violent demonstrations, announces yet another episode of tension in the kingdom of Southeast Asia. Is accustomed to cyclical crises.
The country has been going through a period of turbulence since the military-royalist establishment blocked the alternation embodied by the Move Forward party, winner of the legislative elections of May 14, whose reform program is considered too radical by the conservative fringes.
More than three months after the vote that inflicted a crushing defeat on the generals in power since 2014, a controversial alliance has emerged in recent weeks around Pheu Thai, second in the ballot, who relegated Move Forward to the opposition.
The opposition movement controlled by the Shinawatra family has joined forces with pro-army formations, reneging on its campaign promises not to unite with the military.
Pheu Thai announced Monday the rallying of another important party close to the generals. The coalition, which mixes the outgoing power and its former adversaries, now has eleven parties.
Deputies and senators are to meet on Tuesday to appoint a Prime Minister with the sole candidate Srettha Thavisin, a businessman new to politics, from Pheu Thai, who is proposing a unity government capable of breaking the country’s stalemate.
But the vote — the second after rejecting Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat in July — could be eclipsed by the return of Thaksin Shinawatra, whose figure has polarized Thai politics for more than two decades.
His daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Saturday that she was going to “pick up (her) father at Don Muang airport” in Bangkok at 9:00 a.m. local time (02:00 GMT).
The return to Thailand of Thaksin, repeatedly announced and never materialized since 2008, seems closer than ever, according to the person concerned, who repeated it Monday on X (ex-Twitter).
The former leader, popular with rural areas in the North and Northeast through a series of pioneering social policies, is the subject of several legal proceedings that he considers politically motivated.
He risks being imprisoned as soon as he arrives, for other cases that have already been tried.
The billionaire, who made his fortune in telecoms, is accused by his detractors of corruption and populism, to the point of having been nicknamed by some “the Berlusconi of Asia”.
Winner of elections in 2001 and 2005, Thaksin retained influence in Thailand despite living abroad to escape justice.
His sister Yingluck Shinawatra was head of government between 2011 and 2014, before being overthrown in turn by the army. His daughter Paetongtarn, 37, made her first election campaign last spring.
Long considered the bane of the military, Thaksin may have won the favor of the army and the monarchy, who prefer him to Pita Limjaroenrat, who is in favor of an overhaul of institutions for more democracy, according to experts interviewed by the AFP.
But this alliance is likely to displease his long-time supporters, the “Red Shirts”, who could reproach him for his compromise with the generals.
“If the establishment must choose between these two evils, it will choose the less virulent of the two,” said political analyst Jade Donavanik.
“Thaksin, for the new generation, it’s quite an old story, but for the conservatives, it’s a new hope,” said Korakot Sangyenpan, of the Group for the Restoration of Democracy.
For pro-democracy activists, Thaksin’s return will not change the course of a kingdom marked by the rollback of fundamental freedoms in recent years, despite massive demonstrations in 2020 for more transparency and equality.
“People won’t focus on the real problem, which is the Thai monarchy, and they will think that Thaksin will help and everything will be better,” said an activist from the protest group Thaluwang, who only gave her nickname. , Bung.
“It would probably be a step backwards for pro-democracy protests in Thailand,” she insisted.
21/08/2023 13:07:48 – Bangkok (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
