Editorial | Thaksin return may bring badly needed stability to Thailand
- Former fugitive prime minister can help new government led by member of his own political party balance urban and rural interests
Former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has remained his country’s most divisive figure, even during 15 years in self-exile. Yet the billionaire’s return this week could help bring stability to a restive nation mired in political deadlock since elections in May.
Hours after he landed, the Thai parliament elected the leader of Thaksin’s political party, property mogul Srettha Thavisin prime minister at the head of a coalition including former opponents.
To cap the political and constitutional drama Thaksin, 74, is expected to seek a royal pardon, having been brought before a court on his arrival and jailed for eight years on charges heard in absentia. He was later admitted to a police hospital with recurrence of pre-existing ailments.
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Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra jailed for 8 years upon return from exile
In a country plagued by military coups on average every seven years since becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1932, Thaksin won two landslide elections in 2001 and 2005, before being toppled by the military a year later, sparking a crisis from which Thailand is yet to emerge.
Experts now deem a royal pardon necessary to end the two-decade political rift between the Shinawatra faction and the royalist military elite.
Thaksin, whose efforts to combat poverty earned him overwhelming popular and rural support against the elite, publicly insists he is returning only to see his grandchildren and has no interest in politics.
Yet his return comes as the Thai establishment joins with Thaksin loyalists to try to end a new crisis, sparked by the shock election win of the radical Move Forward Party.
