A Daughter Sweeps to Power on Her Billionaire Father’s Coattails. Can She Survive?
Thailand’s powerful military and royalists supported the return of the Shinawatra clan to blunt a youth movement that threatened their power
A Daughter Sweeps to Power on Her Billionaire Father’s Coattails. Can She Survive?
Thailand’s powerful military and royalists supported the return of the Shinawatra clan to blunt a youth movement that threatened their power
For two decades, Thailand’s political establishment tried every trick in the book to sideline its most stubborn rival, tycoon-turned-politician Thaksin Shinawatra.
Now it needs him. The forceful emergence of a youth-led progressive movement has challenged both the military and the royal family—Thailand’s traditional centers of power—and led those old enemies to swing behind him. That ends, for now, a roller-coaster ride that took Thaksin from the pinnacle of politics to prison and back.
At 75, Thaksin is once again at the center of Thai power. Over the course of a dizzying year, the eccentric self-made billionaire returned from 15 years of exile, was jailed for corruption, paroled and then pardoned just in time to see his youngest daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, sworn in as prime minister late last month.
Thaksin beamed as he watched her become the fourth member of their family to land the job. He was first, when he rode a populist wave to a landslide election victory in 2001 only to be ousted in a military coup five years later. His brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat, briefly held the role in 2008. Then Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, inherited his loyal base of poor farmers and won elections in 2011. She was removed from office and accused of corruption, charges she said were politically motivated, in the lead-up to another military coup in 2014.
Paetongtarn, 38 and with no political experience, is Thailand’s youngest-ever leader, having been handed the reins to her billionaire father’s juggernaut political party.
“I hope that I can ask him for advice anytime that I want,” Paetongtarn told reporters who asked if Thaksin was the real driving force behind her agenda. But, she added, “I am my own person.”
But now, in a country where the palace is the ultimate arbiter of power and the military its chief protector, the question is how long Paetongtarn will enjoy their support—or whether she will meet the same fate as her father and aunt.
Her sudden rise underscores a trend toward dynastic power across Southeast Asia. Cambodia and the Philippines are both run by the sons of former leaders. In Indonesia, the outgoing president’s son is vice president-elect, poised to seek the top job for himself in a few years’ time. Until recently, Singapore and Myanmar were also ruled by members of influential families. In all these countries, dynasties fared well in elections by promising trusted brands of leadership.
“Power in Southeast Asia is all about personalities,” said Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate at the University of Nottingham Malaysia who specializes in the region’s politics. “Dynasties get their power from relationships and patronages, and they have traction in elections because of name recognition. It’s really hard for new forces to break in.”
‘He was underestimated’
Thaksin himself forged an unconventional path to power in Thailand, where old-money elites with close ties to the monarchy—the richest in the world—enjoy a seat of privilege.
As Chinese immigrants who arrived in Thailand in the mid-19th century and later settled in the country’s north, the Shinawatra clan built a small empire from disparate businesses including silk textile production, an orange grove, a petrol station, a coffee shop and a motorcycle dealership, according to Thaksin’s longtime aide Jakrapob Penkair.
Thaksin was born into wealth and influence, but later became one of Thailand’s richest men by dominating Thailand’s telecommunications sector.
When he decided to enter politics, he was an outsider who had to learn the ways of the Thai elite.
“He was initially underestimated,” said Penkair, who was a spokesman for his government during his premiership. “Things that people didn’t teach you could kill you, politically and socially, there are many unspoken rules you need to learn. But he’s a fast learner, and he doesn’t make the same mistake twice.”
He seized on popular frustration with the Bangkok-based elite. After serving in the mid-1990s as foreign minister and deputy prime minister, in 1998 he founded his own political party, Thai Rak Thai, which means “Thais Love Thais.” In 2001, his party trounced the establishment, and he became prime minister.
Thaksin’s popularity only grew while he was in office. He made big cash injections into local development funds, expanded access to credit and launched a universal healthcare program that standardized the price of visits to the doctor at 30 baht—around one U.S. dollar. He also took a hard line on social ills, waging a war on drugs that pleased his base but that human-rights groups say led to thousands of extrajudicial killings.
A growing threat
When he won re-election in 2005, Thailand’s military-royalist establishment knew it had a problem. An emboldened Thaksin, backed by millions of Thais, was too big a threat to their power.
The military and royalists launched a popular movement against Thaksin, seizing on an opaque $1.9 billion sale of his Shin Corp. in early 2006 to brand him as a rich, entitled hypocrite who sold out the poor he claimed to represent. Wearing the color of the palace, the so-called “Yellow Shirts” took to the streets to demand he step down.
In September of that year, while he was in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, the military seized power in a bloodless coup. Thaksin suddenly found himself in exile.
“That was when he realized his battle with the establishment wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University in Japan. “Popular support isn’t everything.”
For 17 years, Thaksin steered the opposition from London and Dubai, as his supporters—known as the “Red Shirts”—staged mass counterprotests in response to his yellow-draped critics. His Thai Rak Thai Party was dissolved by a court and later rebranded under the banner of Pheu Thai, led by his younger sister Yingluck. She became Thailand’s first female prime minister in 2011.
Yingluck developed her own avid following of female supporters who idolized her style of feminine business attire tailored from traditional Thai silks and perfectly coiffed hair.
Yingluck was hugely popular among the poor for raising the minimum wage and injecting massive amounts of capital into a rice subsidy program. But in 2014 Yingluck was indicted on a charge of corruption and removed from office when a court found her guilty of abuse of power in removing her national security chief—a key member of the military establishment that challenged her family’s rule. Opponents said she transferred him to clear a path for one of her relatives to get a top police job. Yingluck followed her brother into exile before her corruption trial ended. Like him, she was sentenced in absentia.
Politically, the Shinawatras seemed doomed. Both Thaksin and Yingluck were in exile. A new and mysterious monarch—King Vajiralongkorn—ascended the throne in 2016. The military junta that succeeded Yingluck’s government wrote a new constitution to enshrine its power.
While in exile, Thaksin occasionally still made a splash back home—like with his 2007 acquisition of U.K. soccer team Manchester City, or in brief appearances on social media—but he and his family were sitting on the sidelines.
A cautious comeback
Paetongtarn was meant to be the Pheu Thai Party’s path back to power. In the 2023 national election, the little-known executive of a family hospitality firm was photogenic, pregnant and social-media savvy when she stormed the campaign trail. Polls predicted a landslide win.
But a new progressive party called Move Forward pulled off a stunning upset, backed by disillusioned youth who were fed up with the feud between politicians pitting the rich elite against the rural poor. Unlike the Shinawatras’ centrist approach, the party pushed for bold curbs on the power of the military and the monarchy, landing them in the establishment’s crosshairs.
The military blocked Move Forward from picking a prime minister, then a court ultimately dissolved the party and banned its leaders—the same playbook used against Thaksin in the early days of his political stardom.
Pheu Thai put forth a compromise candidate for the premiership who headed a short-lived government.
A fast-moving series of events swept the Shinawatra family itself back to power.
In August last year, Thaksin returned from exile and was immediately jailed. He was soon moved to a police hospital where he spent six months before being released on parole because of his age.
Late last month, Paetongtarn was picked to become premier. Thaksin was officially pardoned the day before she was sworn in.
The Pheu Thai Party and the military didn’t respond to requests for comment. The palace hasn’t commented on the developments.
The Shinawatras, while back in power, are on a tight leash, political analysts say. While Thaksin was pardoned, he still faces a charge under Thailand’s lèse-majesté law, which makes insulting the monarchy a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
“He doesn’t have a lot of leverage,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. “Thaksin is still beholden to the palace.”
Write to Feliz Solomon at feliz.solomon@wsj.com