The long shadow of Thaksin Shinawatra

The Straits Times (Malaysia)

BANGKOK, Nov 17 — The house with the high walls in an upscale enclave in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh is less than 100m from the Thai embassy.

The man in the house is a fugitive from his native country, evading a two-year sentence for graft and thwarting attempts to extradite him to Thailand.

Thaksin Shinawatra looked a little tired and drawn. He had flown in the previous morning and had already had meetings with family and friends, including dinner and lunch with his hosts, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife Bun Rany. He was getting ready for a TV interview.

His presence in Cambodia had sparked a rift between Bangkok and Phnom Penh that is deepening by the day. He appears to have established an alliance of sorts with Hun Sen, who has his own annoyances with Thailand.

The arrangement gives Thaksin a foothold physically close to Thailand.

Somchai Wongsawat, who served briefly as Thailand’s premier last year, and Yongyuth Tiyapairat, former House Speaker, called on him during his four-day stay.

About 50 MPs from the opposition Puea Thai party also travelled to Siem Reap to meet him. Thaksin, however, left Cambodia last Saturday and it is unclear how often he will visit the country.

When we met the second evening he was there, he was loquacious, slamming the current Thai government’s anti-poverty programmes that are similar to his but have yet to inspire the loyalty of the masses the way his did.

One needed to understand how society worked instead of simply copying programmes, he said. On the table were copies of his latest book on eradicating poverty. He has become something of a ‘scholar’, he said, giving lectures around the world. His latest assignment: adviser to Hun Sen on a token salary of US$1 (RM3.36) a day.

“Hun Sen sympathises with me,” he said. “I am being set up for investigation by all my political opponents, and they use double standards all the time, disband my parties one after another.

“As a friend, he offered me a place to stay here.”

He admitted that, while he wanted to return to Thailand, the timing was not right. Were elections a factor, I asked. He would only say: “There might be a situation where I can go back. But...well, it’s not the time yet.”

He said he feared for the future of Thailand. When I pointed out that he was the one regarded as a national security threat by the Thai establishment, he scoffed: “It is they who are the threat that has brought the whole country into chaos like this.

“During my administration, change could be done by democratic means, but why didn’t they wait, why did they boycott the election in April 2006, why did they try to disband Thai Rak Thai? All the mess is created by the Democrats.”

Thai Rak Thai was Thaksin’s political vehicle before he was ousted in a coup in September 2006.

As for Thailand’s continuing political turmoil, he said: “I want this war ended on the negotiation table. I want to see Thailand as one nation.”

Would he compromise? “I avail myself for compromise all the time,” he replied without hesitation.

Asked what he would bring to the table, he became animated, saying: “Whatever, they are in power, why don’t they offer? We are ready to talk.”

He also said it might take someone “outside the system” to bring about a compromise.

Thaksin still enjoys very wide support in Thailand, but has polarised Thai society like no one else in recent memory. When he became prime minister in 2001, corruption rumours swirled around him. It was only a split decision by the Constitutional Court exonerating him of charges of concealing assets that enabled him to continue in office as premier.

But over the years, the other side of him has seized the imagination of many poor Thais. Across the north-eastern Isan region, local people have told journalists they did not care if Thaksin was corrupt, as long as he delivered results for them.

His critics, seeing him tour the rural heartland ordering projects and sometimes handing out cash from his own pocket to adoring children, called it Latin American-style populism. Economists said household debt went up. But rural people were in debt to government agencies at normal rates, not to moneylenders who charged 20 per cent and could maim defaulters.

But just as he is a hero to millions, to many others, especially the old-money elite, he is a ruthless manipulator who trampled on human rights and boasted about staying in power for 20 years.

Analysts have said he was too strong an alternative power centre, threatening the royalist-military- bureaucracy set-up that traditionally called the shots in Thailand as governments come and go.

That Thaksin still spooks Thailand’s conservative old-money elite three years after he left the country says much about the 2006 coup d’etat.

Events since early 2006 have exposed deep fissures in Thai society, between those in Thaksin’s camp and the older elite jostling for pre-eminence in the twilight of the rein of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Powerful forces are against him, but Thaksin has been telling his followers over voice and video links that he will return “if the people want me”.

At the end of our meeting in Phnom Penh, he said: “See you in Bangkok.” It did not sound like just a polite goodbye. He meant it.