In an interview with The Washington Post, the former prime minister said Thailand’s military aims to stay in power for the next two decades.
By Shibani Mahtani Shibani Mahtani Reporter covering Southeast Asia Email Bio Follow March 25 at 1:56 PM HONG KONG — Sitting in a luxury hotel suite, its balcony overlooking the skyscrapers lining Victoria Harbor, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra watched results from his country’s first election since a 2014 military coup ousted his sister’s government stream in.
Since Thaksin’s rise to power in the early 2000s, two factions have dominated Thai politics — the “red shirts,” who revere him and his allies, delivering them landslide victories at the ballot box, and the “yellow shirts,” who despise the Thaksin camp and its populist policies. There were “irregularities which never happened before in the previous election,” he said. “That was [the military’s] intention.”
In the days before the vote, Thaksin held a lavish wedding for his youngest daughter in Hong Kong. Among those in attendance was the aforementioned princess, Ubolratana Rajakanya. They were photographed in an embrace and took selfies.
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