Thaksin’s year II

Marwaan Macan-Markar is a longtime Bangkok-based journalist. He has an article, “Thaksin Redux: Thai Politics as Theater” with the semi-academic journal GlobalAsia. It begins with this vignettes:

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA’​S appetite for the high life is legendary. So it was fitting that the former Thai prime minister marked his early taste of freedom in Bangkok after 15 years of exile with his billionaire-style habits. At one party, hosted at his family’s mansion weeks after he was granted parole in mid-February last year, the then 74-year-old tycoon treated his guests to sips of a limited-edition whisky from his private collection. The star tipple that evening was The Macallan 72 Years Old in Lalique, a single malt Scotch that goes for an eye-watering 4.7 million Thai baht ($140,000) a bottle.

His pulling power as the most dominant Thai politician of his generation was confirmed at other soirees that followed. Such gatherings served notice that the former fugitive was picking up with the same swagger and flair he had when he left. One was a night of karaoke songs in a sumptuous Bangkok hotel, where another Thaksin favorite, pricey Chateau Petrus, was served. The guests who sipped on this vintage red wine from Bordeaux, which goes for around 400,000 Thai baht a bottle, comprised a Who’s Who of the rarefied world of Thai oligarchs, political leaders of all stripes and Shinawatra-family confidants.

Thaksin is restless, relentless, and arrogant, and as we said earlier in the year, this is likely to be his year.

He’s essentially running the government in a “Thaksin 2.0”:

… drive to shape Thailand’s politics, economics and even foreign policy in ways that dovetail with his vision of change. It has ranged from negotiating with leaders of the government’s coalition parties over policy issues to orchestrating pushbacks against the government’s political adversaries. Thaksin also hit the road earlier this year to campaign for votes in the northern and northeastern rural heartlands ahead of early February local elections. And later that month, he headed to the country’s southernmost provinces to explore the prospects of a peace plan to end a raging separatist insurgency.

His tendency to push and gamble is also on display in this new iteration of rule by Thaksin. And, the anti-Thaksin “ultra-royalist and ultra-conservative camps” continue to watch and worry, but in a better-the-devil-you-know deal, hold off. Yet there is the “prospect of another chapter in a bitter political feud…”.

But, as the article concludes, Thaksin holds the keys and the reins (for the moment):

Thaksin holds the answers. He would undoubtedly prefer it if the restrictions placed on him from entering formal politics to run the country as an elected prime minister would be lifted. But such a sea change in the law and the current constitution appears unlikely. His next best option is to continue with the spectacle of Thai politics as theater, scripting the agenda and crafting lines for his daughter and his political confidants to mouth….