Shinawatra dynasty dominated Thailand, but it may have run out of power

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

Paetongtarn Shinawatra has lived a life straight out of a Hollywood film.
As the photogenic daughter of a billionaire political patriarch, she made history when she followed in her father's footsteps and became the leader of Thailand.
She was the country's youngest prime minister — and only the second woman, after her aunt, to hold the office.
Like her father and aunt, the 38-year-old's stint as prime minister looks set to end in scandal.
Only a year into the job, Paetongtarn was taken down by one of her famous father's close friends, who happens to be the former strongman ruler of neighbouring Cambodia.
Now there is talk her fall from grace could spell the end of the Shinawatra's powerful political dynasty and its influence on Thai politics.
The Shinawatra family has dominated the Kingdom's politics for 25 years.
During that time, they have amassed immense wealth.
According to Forbes, patriarch Thaksin is Thailand's 11th richest person, worth more $3 billion.
For her part, Paetongtarn and her husband declared 13.9 billion baht ($650 million) worth of assets earlier this year.
That included two homes in London, two pieces of land in Japan, more than 200 designer handbags and at least 75 luxury watches.
Thaksin built the family fortune leasing computers to the police before moving into telecoms.
When he turned to politics, Thaksin was beloved by his rural base and the working class for policies aimed at lifting living standards.
But he was despised by urban elites and military conservatives.
They accused him and his sister Yingluck, who also served as prime minister, of abuse of power, nepotism and corruption.
While prime minister from 2001 to 2006, Thaksin's businesses benefited from government concessions, much to the anger of the public.
The Shinawatra family also sold a $2.88 billion stake in a major telecommunications company without paying any capital gains tax.
He was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 2006 while overseas.
The family's wealth became the subject of multiple legal probes.
Thaksin fled Thailand in 2008 and lived in exile for 15 years.
He went back in 2023, despite facing an eight-year jail term for abuse of power, which he had been convicted of in absentia.
Thaksin's return was well timed.
It coincided with the election of his ally, real estate mogul Srettha Thavisin.
The ousted prime minister was immediately moved from jail to hospital, and his term was commuted to one year by the King of Thailand.
After six months Thaksin was released on parole.
He now faces new legal battles, and is being prosecuted under Thailand's strict lèse-majesté laws, which prevent most discussion and certainly criticism of the Thai Royal Family.
Thaksin's sister Yingluck, Thailand's first female prime minister, followed a similar trajectory.
She was removed from office by the Constitutional Court in 2014.
She too has been living in self-exile and has been convicted of negligence and sentenced to five years in prison over a failed rice subsidy scheme, which lost the country billions of dollars.
When a court order ended Srettha Thavisin's time in office prematurely last year, Paetongtarn was appointed prime minister after a parliamentary vote.
The Shinawatra family was back in Bangkok's Government House, once again cementing their dominance in Thailand's politics.
Since becoming primer minister, Paetongtarn has been repeatedly accused of being a puppet for her father.
Cambodia's former prime minster Hun Sen and Paetongtarn's father Thaksin reportedly refer to each other as god-brothers and their friendship has a long history.
Hun Sen visited Thaksin in Thailand only last year, after he was released from detention.
They had been close allies during Thaksin's years long exile.
Hun Sen had provided him sanctuary, and named him a special adviser.
This caused consternation for many in Thailand, who saw it as political interference from a neighbouring country.
Hun Sen has even preserved and named two rooms in his grand residence after Thaksin and his sister, Yingluck, which he says he showed to Paetongtarn on her last official visit to Cambodia.
Cambodian media also reported he had helped Yingluck escape Thailand when she was facing prosecution using a Cambodian passport.
Hun Sen ruled Cambodia for nearly 40 years, in which time its fragile young democracy disintegrated.
Even though he is no longer prime minister, Hun Sen maintains huge political power and authority, according to UNSW researcher Vu Lam.
Exactly why he has now decided to blow up the longstanding close relationship is unclear and the subject of much rumour and speculation — but he has placed the blame on Paetongtarn.
"I regret that a 30-year friendship was destroyed by a friend's daughter," he said, referring to Paetongtarn.
At the centre of Paetongtarn's demise is a phone call between her and Hun Sen about a dispute over the Thai-Cambodian border.
Hun Sen leaked the call, and posted it in full to his Facebook page after admitting he had already shared it with around 80 people.
He said he had recorded the conversation "to avoid any misunderstanding or misrepresentation in official matters" and for "the sake of transparency".
Paetongtarn's deferential tone towards Hun Sen during the call struck a nerve in Thailand.
She was accused of kowtowing to the former strongman.
In the phone call, Paetongtarn calls Hun Sen uncle and refers to a senior member of her own military as an opponent.
"She complains that the military did not really want to solve the border conflict and they want to show that they are our hero," says Punchada Sirivunnabood, the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Mahidol University in Bangkok.
"Also [Paetongtarn] offers a lot of things to the former prime minister Hun Sen … and she said that 'if you want anything, you can tell me what you want'.
"This kind of message, when it reached other people, they feel this is not the right way that you should offer the country to another country that we have a conflict with right now."
Once the call was made public, Thailand's Constitutional Court accepted a petition from 36 senators accusing Paetongtarn of ethical misconduct.
She was suspended from duty while it investigates.
This episode exposes a unique feature of diplomacy in South-East Asia, which on this occasion has left Paetongtarn vulnerable.
"That informality is really core to the Asian way — the way they do business, the way they do diplomacy — if you have some sort of close connection with someone you lean on that," Dr Lam says.
"Because of the close ties between the two families, it would feel natural for Paetongtarn to reach out to Hun Sen, calling him uncle, invoking some sort of familial ties.
"Hun Sen, for some weird reason, decided to actually violate the unspoken rules — but actually there's no norms against that."
This latest controversy might be the final blow for the Shinawatra family's political dynasty in Thailand, according to Dr Sirivunnabood.
"We have been with this dynasty for about 20 years already," she told the ABC.
"People come and go, maybe it's time for the Shinawatra family to finish their roles in the politics of Thailand.
"Thaksin himself has done a lot of things that are not acceptable for the people … so I think it's difficult for this family to win the next election and to survive and to maintain their power in politics."
But Dr Lam thinks the family might be resilient enough to withstand this test.
"This will deal a serious blow to the Shinawatra dynasty," he said.
"But if history has taught us anything the lesson would be that this family are survivors, they've come back from exile, from coups.
"The scandal will weaken the family's influence … [but] they will still be in the game in some capacity, it's not the end of the dynasty."
Either way, this will certainly be a test for Thailand's democracy.
Since the country established its constitutional monarchy in 1932, there have been more than 10 military coups, the most recent in 2014.
"I think most of the people in Thailand, we don't want coups anymore," Dr Sirivunnabood says.
"The last 20 years has proved that having the new military government does not really change the country."