It has been two years since the charismatic and controversial Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as Thailand’s prime minister. Yet amid the rice-growing villages of the country’s heartland, his legacy lives on.
A walk down the rutted roads of Kok Loi illustrates why Thaksin, despite facing a possible conviction on corruption charges Tuesday, remains the central figure in Thai politics amid a deepening political crisis.
Villagers point to the homes they built during Thaksin’s tenure from 2001 to 2006, the refrigerators they bought, the general store they opened — all a result of the low-interest loans his government offered.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
“Thaksin was the savior of the poor,” said Kamcham Pokasang, 68, a farmer from Kok Loi in the northeastern Buriram Province, where lush green paddies of jasmine rice stretch to the horizon. “Before Thaksin we had nothing, only rice fields. Thanks to Thaksin, my family now has everything.”
A five-hour drive away, in Bangkok, opinion is decidedly more mixed.
Anti-government protesters have barricaded themselves in the prime minister’s office compound for nearly two months, paralyzing the government, splitting society down the middle and creating Thailand’s worst political crisis in years. They accuse Thaksin of being corrupt, and see Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who is his brother-in-law, as a proxy for the former leader.
Thaksin, who was deposed in a 2006 coup, is living in self-imposed exile in London, saying he will not get a fair trial in Thailand.
His first conviction came yesterday, when a court ruled found him guilty of conflict of interest stemming from his wife’s 2003 purchase of a lucrative plot in Bangkok at a deflated price from a government agency.
Yet the 59-year-old former business tycoon remains the most prominent politician in the country. Love him or hate him, nobody can stop talking about him.
Protesters marched through central Bangkok on Monday, calling for a purge of all Thaksin loyalists from the government and accusing him of vote buying in rural areas.
“Thaksin is a bad man. He does everything for himself,” said Naree Sivaboon, 54, a government employee. “He never helped the people of Thailand.”
The Nation, an English-language newspaper, wrote in a commentary on Friday: “All problems in Thailand are seen by many as masterminded by Thaksin.”
It noted that even a skirmish last week between Thai and Cambodian troops was “attributed to Thaksin’s maneuvering behind the scenes.”
The political crisis is a tug-of-war between Thaksin’s supporters in rural areas, where two-thirds of Thailand’s 65 million people live, and an educated middle class in Bangkok that wants to remove all vestiges of Thaksin.
Protesters believe Thaksin is operating behind the scenes to assure his allies stay in power long enough to clear him of corruption charges and help get his remaining riches out of the country.
Forbes Asia magazine put Thaksin’s estimated net worth at US$400 million in July after Thai authorities froze more than US$2 billion of his family’s assets pending the outcome of the corruption cases.
“Thaksin is behind every political move of this government,” said Suriyasai Katasila, one of the protest movement’s leaders. “He wants them to unlock his assets and clear his name so he can return to power.”
The residents of Kok Loi pay little heed to the corruption accusations.
“I don’t care if Thaksin was corrupt. All politicians are corrupt,” said Gad Pokasang, a 68-year-old rice farmer in Kok Loi.
He and his wife, Kamcham, praised Thaksin for banishing drug dealers, giving them affordable health care and helping put food on the table.
“We built this house thanks to Thaksin,” said Kamcham, also 68, as she proudly showed a visitor around her modest two-story cement home. “This TV and stereo came from Thaksin. This refrigerator and washing machine, our two motorcycles. Everything.”
Many in the rural heartland recall Thaksin as the first prime minister who paid attention to them.
He created a program known as the 1 million baht (US$30,000) village fund, in which villagers could apply for low-interest rations of 20,000 baht each.
Kok Loi built a general store with interest generated from the loans.
“I’m so sick of all the protests in Bangkok,” said 41-year-old rice farmer Somporn Ongklang, who took a loan to buy a mechanical plowing machine. “Those people are not poor. They don’t know how difficult life can be, and how much Thaksin helped us.”
The group behind the protests, which calls itself the People’s Alliance for Democracy, is a mix of royalists, business owners, students and activists who say that Western-style democracy has become too messy for Thailand.
They say rural voters are too ignorant to choose Thailand’s leadership and propose a plan, still only loosely defined, that would weaken the rural voice in hope of changing the balance of power.
Analysts have widely criticized the idea as turning the clock back on Thailand’s democracy, and villagers in Nohn Makok, near Kok Loi, are outraged.
“I might be poor, but I know they can’t take away my right to vote,” said Somboon Boontee, a 57-year-old rice and tapioca farmer who scrapes by on under 70,000 baht a year. “If you ask me, Thailand’s troubles started when Thaksin left.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AFP
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