The billionaire who once owned British soccer giants Manchester City and dominated his country’s politics is now behind bars watching his dynasty disappear.
Thaksin Shinawatra, a former police officer, revolutionized Thai politics. He has twice served as the kingdom’s prime minister and commands a huge and loyal following, with parties associated with him winning almost every election since 2001.
Thaksin is now in prison, and his party just posted its worst-ever performance in a general election earlier this month that put the conservative order he once challenged firmly back in power for the first time in a quarter of a century.
Analysts say the result could mean more stability for modern Thailand, which has had three prime ministers over the years and experienced 20-year cycles of military coups, violent street protests and paralyzing political instability.
Much of that instability has been caused by fighting between Thaksin and his allies and Thailand’s conservative establishment, a small but powerful network of military, royalist and business elites threatened by Thaksin’s populist policies.
It has been a bitter battle for Thaksin, with opponents using military coups, legal challenges and the courts to weaken or even overthrow the elected government, which includes Shinawatra’s four prime ministers.
“Ever since the pro-Thaksin challenge surfaced in the early 2000s, the whole political game in Thailand has been to resist this giant force and resist progress and reform in the system,” said Thitinan Ponsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University.
Mr. Thaksin has won millions of supporters, especially among his strongholds in the northeast, with promises to improve the lives of the rural working class and introduce universal health care and subsidies for farmers.
However, his popularity posed a threat to the establishment, who saw him as a corrupt populist.
He was ousted in a military coup in 2006, convicted of corruption, and spent 15 years in self-imposed exile. In 2010, his enthusiastic Red Shirt supporters took to the streets of Bangkok to demonstrate, but they were violently quelled.
But even from abroad, he remained a central figure in Thai politics, leading an allied political party that continued to win elections despite repeated dissolutions by the courts.
Thaksin’s dramatic return to Thailand from self-imposed exile in 2023 was a pivotal moment.
The regime had a new threat to contend with. It was a hugely popular progressive movement that wasn’t afraid to break long-standing taboos about openly talking about the royal family or calling for fundamental changes in the way Thailand is run.
The progressive party Forward won that year’s election by promising these reforms. However, the Thaksin faction-backed Thai Contribution Party joined forces with its former enemy, the military, to form a ruling coalition, a shocking move that pushed the progressive movement to the side of the opposition.
Analysts believe they have struck a deal that will allow Thaksin to return and his party to regain control of power. Mr Thaksin denies there was any such agreement.
Upon his arrival, Thaksin was sentenced to eight years in prison for a previous corruption conviction, but his sentence was quickly reduced to one year after receiving a royal pardon.
He spent much of that period working from a VIP hospital suite, raising suspicions of preferential treatment. The court then ordered him to serve his entire prison sentence.
By then, many supporters were disillusioned and felt the party was sold out.
Reflecting these sentiments, last Sunday the Thai Contribution Party failed to win any seats in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin’s birthplace and the center of Shinawatra.
“He used his party as a bargaining chip with Thailand’s conservative forces and to free himself from the prison sentence he is currently serving,” said Napon Jatulipitak, a political scientist and Thailand studies program coordinator at ISEAS (Yusof Ishak Institute).
“He treated the Thai Contribution Party as a vehicle for his family, and…I think people realized that he was using his party as a vehicle for personal gain all along.”
The final nail in the coffin came when Thaksin’s daughter and prime minister, Pethunthan Shinawatra, was forced out of office last year for ethics violations over leaked phone calls in which she appeared to criticize her country’s military during border clashes with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
Due to recent elections, the Thai Contribution Party is now a mid-sized party and no longer the strong political machine it once was.
“It’s clear that all this heritage is gone and that people are no longer willing to support a party based purely on nostalgia,” Napon said.
And Thailand is moving in a different political direction.
“The conservative royalists have a way of avoiding challenges,” Titinan said. “Thaksin’s challenge was about populism and redistribution. The next challenge was not just about income redistribution, but structural reform of the institutions that run Thailand.”
Anutin Charnvirakul, internationally known for legalizing cannabis while serving as health minister, will be entrusted to lead a new coalition government with the Thailand Contribution Party as a junior coalition partner.
The Bhumjaithai Party leader is a staunch royalist and is adamantly opposed to amending lese majeste, Thailand’s strict royal defamation law. The party has built a strong local support base, capitalizing on rising nationalism fueled by last year’s deadly border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, economic hardship and uncertainty over Thailand’s trade relationship with the United States.
That progressive movement will remain in the opposition.
“Whenever you work with progressives, you have to understand that you are trying to change society as a whole,” said Charit Ratapana, an IT worker who was active in the 2020 youth-led protests. “So if it doesn’t happen today, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll just continue to support them.”
The new government led by Anutin may be more stable, but “I don’t think it’s necessarily more democratic,” Napon said.
“These tools can still be used as weapons against rebels.”
It seems like this is already the case.
The day after the election, the National Anti-Corruption Commission found 44 progressive opposition politicians guilty of trying to reform the lese majeste law. Ten of them were newly elected in Sunday’s vote, but they could be permanently banned from politics if the Supreme Court rules against them.
But few are completely done with Thailand’s volatile political arena. Mr. Thaksin may be eligible for parole in May, and his nephew is his party’s prime ministerial candidate.
“Thaksin is a newsmaker, a dealmaker, he has an ego and he always thinks he has another card up his sleeve,” Thitinan said.
“The Shinawatra brand is here to stay. It’s just not as strong and definitive as it once was.”
