Old Wounds Pose Challenge for Thailand’s New PM

She made her entry into Thai politics just six weeks ago—and now the charismatic Yingluck Shinawatra, 43, is set to become Thailand’s first female prime minister after a landslide win in Sunday’s election.

With no experience in politics, Yingluck was placed atop the Pheu Thai Party, the party allied to her brother, ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006.

Many hoped that Thailand’s fourth election in seven years might start healing the country’s five-year political crises, but Yingluck’s unexpected entry, and rise to victory, is more likely to throw salt on open wounds.

With Yingluck in power, it is expected she will bring back her brother Thaksin to Thailand. He was convicted in absentia on charges of corruption and has a pending arrest warrant on him for terrorism charges connected last year’s anti-government violence.

Over the past weeks, Yingluck and the Pheu Thai Party called for amnesty for politicians convicted in the aftermath of the 2006 coup to bring "reconciliation" to the country. The measure, of course, would pave the way for Thaksin’s return. Thaksin has been living in exile and has made it known on multiple occasions that his hope is to return.

Thaksin, a billionaire telecom tycoon, entered politics in 1998, by creating the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party. By 2001, he was leading the country, voted in on a platform of populist policies aimed at the rural poor. He was immensely popular in the countryside for it, but deeply resented among Bangkok’s urban elite.

Opposition to his rule spawned the yellow-shirt protest movement that ultimately ended in the September 2006 bloodless coup.

In the first post-coup election two years later, pro-Thaksin People Power Party won the 2007 elections. Their leader was then disqualified, and after more Democrat-aligned yellow-shirt protests—during which they occupied Government House and Bangkok’s two major airports—and some complicated political maneuvering, Abhisit Vejjajiva was appointed prime minister of a coalition government.

This gave rise to the formation of the red shirts, protesting what they considered the illegitimate government of Abhisit, which Thaksin orchestrated from abroad.

Abhisit had hoped to win an electoral mandate on Sunday, but lost the bid to Thaksin’s sister.

While Yingluck has at times during the campaign stressed her independence from her brother, Thaksin himself called his “clone.”

"Some said she is my nominee. That’s not true. But it can be said that Yingluck is my clone," Thaksin is reported to have told the Post Today in Brunei when she was nominated.

Also, the Pheu Thai party hasn’t made a secret of Thaksin’s position in the party, with slogans such as “Thaksin thinks, Pheu Thai does.”

Neither the yellow shirts, which mainly represent the country’s established elite, and the army, which traditionally stands behind the elite, are expected to tolerate Thaksin’s return.

During the campaign two weeks ago, army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha warned the nation in a televised speech to avoid the same results as in previous polls, referring to the elections won by Thaksin’s allies. Prayuth also warned of threats against the country’s monarchy.

Now that Yingluck and Pheu Thai have won, everyone will be watching what the army does. Probably they will not resort to another coup (at least not right away) knowing it would bring the red shirts back to the streets en masse.

Last April-May, red-shirt demonstrators occupied a 1.2 square-mile area in the heart of Bangkok’s commercial district demanding that Abhisit call early elections. It didn’t work. Instead, it ended with dozens of buildings being set on fire and a military response that left 92 demonstrators dead, and over a 1,000 more injured.

Also the red shirts have become far more organized since their early days.

But if Yingluck passes the political amnesty in her new majority Parliament, and Thaksin comes back, most Thais expect a return to violence.

“I think that we will see a lot of conflicts like street fighting. … My concern is about violence that might erupt on the surface at any time,” says Krit Kunplin, 34, a former journalist turned marketing executive for an international firm in Bangkok.

Krit thinks Thaksin’s return will bring the yellow shirts back to the streets, and could provoke a reaction from the army as well.

“I don’t think that will be good for Thai society. I think it’s a fact that we have to face sooner or later. But the result will not be peaceful,” said Krit.

However Krit did say that Thailand has managed to get through more difficult political periods and gave a revolution during the 1930s and the communist insurgency as examples.
 
“And this [current situation] is another challenge for Thai society to come to terms with itself,” he said.  

The question for the coming weeks and months is to see how the politically inexperienced Yingluck, who has looked like a rock-star at times on the campaign trail, will be handle what comes next.