After spending fifteen years in exile, Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, was arrested upon his return.
However, a lot of people think he’s made a deal that will spare him from going to jail for an extended length of time. Ahead of the election for the future leader of Thailand, in which Mr. Thaksin’s Pheu Thai party is the front-runner, he arrived on Tuesday morning aboard a private jet.
However, the brazen, politically aspirational telecoms tycoon is back. Hundreds of devoted fans had flocked to Bangkok’s main airport overnight to greet him, and they cheered him on. He momentarily exited the airport terminal, surrounded by his two daughters and son, and he gave his respects to a picture of the monarch and queen.
Without delay, he was brought before the Supreme Court and given an eight-year term for the unresolved charges. Following that, he was transported to Bangkok Remand Prison. As to the statement from the department of prisons, “he is safe under the supervision of the staff.”
The sixty-three-year-old Samniang Kongpolparn had been waiting to see Mr. Thaksin outside the Don Mueang Airport since Monday night. She had traveled from Surin province in the northeast, which had been Mr. Thaksin’s party’s heartland in previous decades, along with a large number of other followers.
“We’ve never had a better prime minister than him. I wanted to come support him even though I won’t be seeing him today,” she remarked. “If they don’t make amends with the pro-military administration, we’ll have to deal with the senators. It’s not what we desire.”
Later today, Mr. Thaksin’s Pheu Thai party is anticipated to become a part of a coalition administration – a convoluted procedure that has brought Thailand full circle in just three months.
There were early hopes for a fresh dawn, with the radical young Move Forward party leading the way and taking the majority of seats in the May election.
Move Forward first partnered with Pheu Thai, but it’s now clear that the coalition will include nearly all parties save the reformers, including two parties run by old coup leaders. Pheu Thai had sworn that it would not enter into an agreement with its avowed adversaries.
The two developments, according to Pheu Thai, are unrelated. Not many people think that.