CeritalahAs Thailand’s young look to the future, does Thaksin Shinawatra still matter?
- One man has dominated Thai politics for decades and it's not King Vajiralongkorn – it’s the billionaire turned leader in exile Thaksin Shinawatra.
- But as a new generation emerges, so too has a new father figure for them to turn to – Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. You can call him ‘dad’
Indeed, political parties with his imprimatur – whether it’s the Pheu Thai or its Thai Rak Thai and People’s Power Party predecessors – have won every national election since 2001. For the past eleven years, the 69-year-old has never publicly set foot in the kingdom and yet his presence – or shall we say, “absence” – remains the defining element in Thai political life.
How and why does this man – a mere commoner – exert such a strong grip on the public imagination?
Much of his allure is rooted in the groundbreaking policies (dubbed “Thaksinomics”) that he introduced during his tenure as prime minister. Winning power just three years after the crushing 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, Thaksin entered Government House with a bang – a populist bang – reinvigorating a devastated economy, so much so that GDP growth shot up to 6.15 per cent within a year of his arrival in office.