July 7, 2011. Copyright 2011, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Thaksin Shinawatra draws a red line through Thailand
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, July 7, Graphic News:  Few political leaders have divided their country in the way that exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has drawn a red line through Thailand. On one side, his opponents are furious that Shinawatra, 58, continues to pull the strings of his Puea Thai party all the way from Dubai. On the other are the loyalists who will go to any lengths to bring back their country's most popular leader in decades.

For some, those lengths extended to voting for his sister Yingluck (Shinawatra has called her his "clone"), who came from near obscurity to win the country's recent general election. A 44-year-old businesswoman with little political experience, Yingluck was initally seen as a risky bet as candidate for prime minister but her popularity soared on promises that echoed the populist rhetoric of her older brother, and her campaign rode on his coat-tails, promising: "Thaksin thinks -- Puea Thai does."

While for some Yingluck has merely embodied her brother's values, others are hoping that she now has the power to bring back the fugitive politician, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 and then convicted on charges of corruption and undermining democratic institutions. Her party has floated the idea of an amnesty that effectively erases events prior to 2006, and which would allow him to return.

Outgoing prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had warned that the continued involvement of Shinawatra in national affairs threatened the peace and stability of Thailand, where more than 90 people died in clashes between his "redshirts" and government troops last year. But it has begun to look as though the harder Thaksin's opponents try to keep him out, the more his supporters want him back.

Claims from Vejjajiva's Democrats and others that the telecoms tycoon lined his own pockets and muzzled the media during his two terms in office are dismissed by the rural poor, who back him for taking on the country's old elites. Yingluck, who will become Thailand's first woman prime minister, has tapped into the same nerve, presenting a softer, less strident version of her brother's championing of the poor.

But her party will have to form a coalition with others that might not be so willing to accommodate the disgraced Shinawatra, and the elections that were aimed at forging reconciliation could end up widening the rift. The military has said it will not intervene but that threat is never too remote in a country that has seen more than a dozen coups in eight decades. What is also clear is that the lengths Shinawatra's supporters will go to include risking their lives -- making any hasty attempt to permanently exclude him from the new power base very dangerous indeed.
/ENDS