Newley Purnell
That’s what the Bangkok Post says today, quoting a Pheu Thai source:
The Pheu Thai Party is expected to appoint exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as a government trade envoy to promote Thai exports abroad, which will enable him to freely travel the world.
But Noppadon Patama, Thaksin’s lawyer, tells the WSJ that:
“Mr. Thaksin has never thought about taking on any official role, and Ms. Yingluck has no intention of appointing him.”
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The BBC on Sunday posted a text story about the upcoming election. Of particular interest are the embedded video interviews with Abhisit and Thaksin. Worth a watch.
As I noted following Abhisit’s address to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club here in Bangkok in March, he is a skillful politician.
Some analysts say he cannot connect with common people. But on “Hard Talk,” in the featured video, he was characteristically poised and on-message, and this surely must resound with an international audience. Just a thought.
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Today’s Bangkok Post and Nation are running stories about former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s younger sister, Yingluck, as the potential top Puea Thai party candidate in elections expected to take place in June or July.
Thaksin pushes Yingluck for PM
Yingluck Shinawatra is expected to be named the Puea Thai Party’s No.1 party-list candidate, giving her an opportunity to become the country’s first female prime minister.
A Puea Thai source yesterday said the party’s key figures had travelled to meet former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the party’s main supporter and de facto leader, in Dubai and they had agreed to put Ms Yingluck, Thaksin’s youngest sister, as No.1 on the party list and name her as a candidate for the premiership.
Problem with Yingluck as PM candidate is her brother loves her
Whether or not Thaksin Shinawatra will risk his beloved youngest sister Yingluck in politics has become a fascinating story, not least because it is a rare Thai political dilemma with real human elements.
While her possible nomination as Pheu Thai’s candidate to be prime minister may be good for the party, as she could romanticise the election campaign, the idea has its downside. She may end up being a sacrificial lamb.
Yingluck’s increasing presence in news headlines has to do with the fact that Mingkwan Saengsuwan faces the same fate as Yongyuth Wichaidit. Thaksin has tried and tested Mingkwan but is not satisfied. Last week’s messages from the man in exile were that the censure is over, and so is Mingkwan’s status as challenger to Abhisit Vejjajiva’s chief executive title.
No larger point to make here, but just wanted to point out the stories.
(Image: Bangkok Post.)
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Today’s WSJ: Ousted Thai Minister Vows to Play Role After Elections
DUBAI—Thailand’s ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra emerged from months of silence in his self-imposed exile Thursday to say he intends to play a key role in running from afar his country’s economic policies if Thailand’s main opposition party wins coming elections.
His immediate goals include slashing corporate-tax rates and pushing for an amnesty for everybody charged with politically linked offenses in the tumultuous four-plus years since a military coup in Bangkok swept him from power.
“This conflict has been going on for five years and many people have suffered mentally and physically,” Mr. Thaksin told The Wall Street Journal in an interview in a villa in Dubai. “We should start all over again to help the country prosper.”
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WSJ:
Former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra’s lawyers Monday said they have filed a petition to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands to investigate the way Thailand’s security forces suppressed massive street protests in the Thai capital last year. The move could embarrass the country’s army-backed government and further fray nerves in a country still coming to terms with the extent of last May’s violence, in which 91 people were killed and hundreds more injured.
It’s unclear whether the court will accept the petition; Thailand isn’t one of the 144 members of the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Some analysts portrayed the petition as a way to seek to invigorate a fresh round of antigovernment protests in Bangkok or otherwise generate publicity for Mr. Thaksin, a former prime minister deposed in a 2006 coup.
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Speaking of England, Thailand, and soccer, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this BBC story, though it’s not new, having run on Jan. 6:
Sven-Goran Eriksson admits Shinawatra strain at Man City
The former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has told BBC Radio Manchester of his problems he had with former City chairman Thaksin Shinawatra.
The 62-year-old, now in charge at Leicester City, lasted only one year at Eastlands after joining in July 2007.
He said: “His biggest problem was that he didn’t understand football at all and he didn’t realise that.
“He thought football was easy just tell the players to be aggressive and we will resolve all the problems.”
“I think we did well in the whole league more or less until Thaksin decided I had to go at the end of the season,” he added.“Every time we lost he never spoke to me for a week after but when we won it was dinner and very nice hugs and things, so it’s difficult to work with people like that.”
(Emphasis mine.)
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Thailand’s exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is one of five ex-heads of state on Foreign Policy‘s Bad Exes list. A snippet:
Old job: Prime minister of Thailand, 2001-2006
New image: Since being deposed in a 2006 coup amid allegations of graft and human rights abuses, Thaksin has lived a peripatetic existence. The former billionaire businessman has served as a “special ambassador” for Nicaragua and an economic advisor in Cambodia, and was briefly owner of the Manchester City* soccer club. Thaksin reportedly lived under a false name in Germany for more than a year and has used illegally received passports from a number of other countries as well. He now makes his home in Dubai.
(Via Saksith at Siam Voices.)
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Here’s quick look at the front pages of today’s Bangkok Post and the Nation:
The Bangkok Post went with a photo of the Thaksin family and the headline “CRISIS here to stay.”
It’s below the fold in the (crappy cell phone) image here, but a pull-quote for the lead story1 reads, “Red shirts target not just the govt but also the elite, which the military will protect.”
The Nation, meanwhile, has this: “Let JUSTICE Be Done,” says the headline. It may be too small to read in this image, but it continues with an ominous “though the heavens may fall…”
(Nation image via Nation editor @suthichai on Twitter.)
More soon…
(Update: Welcome, BP readers. For more posts about Thailand, be sure to subscribe to the Newley.com RSS feed and follow me on Twitter.)
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Two more stories I wanted to point out as we approach tomorrow’s verdict on ousted ex-Prime Minister Thaksin’s frozen assets.
It begins:
Friday is “judgment day” in Thailand, with a court set to decide whether to confiscate $2.3 billion in frozen assets belonging to the fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The government is warning of potential violence by Mr. Thaksin’s supporters if the ruling goes against him. Soldiers and the police have been put on alert, checkpoints are in place, government buildings are under guard and judges have been offered safe houses.
Some analysts call the warnings propaganda to discredit the opposition, which has said it will mobilize only a small crowd on Friday at the courthouse in Bangkok where the ruling is to be announced.
Months of demonstrations by Mr. Thaksin’s supporters, continuing rumors of coups and small, symbolic acts of violence, like the firing of a grenade into the empty office of the army commander, have set the capital on edge.
Newspapers have stoked the sense of urgency, with daily countdowns to “judgment day” and with headlines like one that appeared on Wednesday, in bold, red type, in The Nation: “Exclusive Interview: Absolutely No Coup.”
And there’s this snippet about the red shirt movement:
A telecommunications tycoon, Mr. Thaksin apparently retains enough wealth abroad to finance a nationwide political machine. A seizure of his assets frozen in Thailand should have no effect on this, said Thongchai Winijakul, a Thai historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It has been almost four years, and the movement is getting bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger without this frozen money,” he said.
There’s also this quote at the end from Thongchai:
“The best option for the reds to win is by election,” said Mr. Thongchai, the Thai historian. “No matter what, if they just wait, they have the vote. They are not stupid. They can wait.”
Thailand is dreading the Supreme Court’s verdict on former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s frozen $2.3 billion in assets, scheduled for tomorrow. No matter how his wealth is disposed, given Thailand’s political polarization the only certainty is that no one will be satisfied. In fact, the conflict will likely intensify as pro- and anti-Thaksin protagonists hunker down for a long battle of attrition.
Read the whole thing.
(All emphasis mine.)
I’ll be blogging here at Newley.com (and tweeting) about the verdict tomorrow, as well. So stay tuned…
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I'm Newley Purnell, an American journalist in Bangkok. I report for Bloomberg BNA, ABC News Radio, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and more.