Arabian Business
Last week Thailand descended into chaos as tens of thousands of protesters surrounded parliament in a bid to drive out the government it accuses of being puppets of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Since he was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006, his UK visa has been revoked, his wife has divorced him and a controversial two-year jail sentence for corruption awaits him in his home country. In his first interview in 18 months, he speaks to Arabian Business.
If Thaksin Shinawatra is feeling the heat, then he's not showing it. Thailand has an arrest warrant out for its former prime minister. The UK has just revoked his visa, and some Western countries are distancing themselves from the man they once championed as their greatest ally in Asia. And yet all Shinawatra can do is shrug.
Last week Thailand descended into chaos as tens of thousands of protesters surrounded parliament in a bid to drive out the government it accuses of being puppets of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Since he was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006, his UK visa has been revoked, his wife has divorced him and a controversial two-year jail sentence for corruption awaits him in his home country. In his first interview in 18 months, he speaks to Arabian Business.
If Thaksin Shinawatra is feeling the heat, then he's not showing it. Thailand has an arrest warrant out for its former prime minister. The UK has just revoked his visa, and some Western countries are distancing themselves from the man they once championed as their greatest ally in Asia. And yet all Shinawatra can do is shrug.
Do you know how many countries there are in the world? There are 197. And only 17 have an extradition treaty with Thailand," he notes with a thin smile. "Better still, only 10 of those treaties are active. So, don't you worry about me, I still have many places to stay."
The poor have no choice
but to live in a capitalist economy,
but they have no capital.
They have no access to it.
If you give them that access,
it changes everything.
but to live in a capitalist economy,
but they have no capital.
They have no access to it.
If you give them that access,
it changes everything.
One such place is Dubai, where Shinawatra is resting comfortably in one of the emirate's top five-star hotels. He might feel entitled to a break, too, as it has been a busy 2008 for the man first nominated to Thailand's top office in a landslide election victory in 2001.
Two years ago he was overthrown in a bloodless coup while visiting the UN in New York. Exiled after months of massive anti-government protests, he ended up in the UK, where he bought Premier League football club Manchester City.
After the 2007 election, in which his new People Power Party won a healthy majority, and the forming of a new democratic government by his allies, Shinawatra returned in early 2008 to face his corruption charges in legal courts.
However, he and his wife skipped bail - they were convicted in absentia, and a lengthy stay in a Bangkok jail awaits them if they return.
The UK froze his reputed $4bn of assets, forcing him to sell Manchester City to Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mansour. To add to his troubles, his UK visa was revoked - oh, and his wife divorced him last week.
"It's been a busy few months," he says, laughing at his own predicament. And it's about to get even busier, as Shinawatra reveals he intends to make a comeback in politics, tackle global poverty, reorganise the Middle East's healthcare system - and while he's at it, establish a sizeable foundation to look after Asians hit by the financial crisis.
The really tricky one on the above ‘Shinawatra to-do list' is return to politics. On October 21, 2008, five members of a nine-member special bench of the Supreme Court found him guilty of a conflict of interest and sentenced him to two years in jail.
The judges found that Shinawatra had ultimate oversight over the Financial Institutions Development Fund, a government-run agency that bought up bank collateral and mortgages.
Shinawatra's wife won a competitive auction for a piece of land owned by the FIDF in 2003, and the judges found that his wife's purchase of the land was done on his behalf, thus constituting a conflict of interest.
Given the two-year jail term that awaits him upon his his return - not to mention a long list of political enemies who would like to see the back of him for good - a return to his homeland doesn't sound like the wisest move.
"I have no choice," he insists. "In the beginning after I was ousted, my wife asked me not to go back to politics. She didn't like politics, and the whole family went through a lot of hardship so I didn't go back.
"But now I have been cornered because the country is going down deeply," he continues. "The confidence is not there; the trust among the foreign community is not there; the poor people in rural areas are in difficulty.
With me at the helm I can bring confidence quickly back to Thailand, and that is why we have to find a mechanism under which I can go back into politics."
What does his wife think about this? "She has divorced me," he responds, bluntly - end of subject.
He admits that going back now would be too risky, but insists that "time is on my side". Last week tens of thousands of anti-government protesters marched on Thailand's parliament.
The protesters, from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) blocked all streets leading to parliament and besieged other state buildings, forcing MPs to cancel their business, in response to a grenade attack on the protester's camp that killed one of their supporters earlier this month.
Violence flared and as Arabian Business went to press, the head of Thailand's army had asked the government to dissolve parliament and call new elections - circumstances hardly conducive to a return for the former prime minister.
"I can stay here and do some business, enjoy life a bit. But I have to go back for my people and my supporters, most of whom are poor or middle class," he says.
"In the past the poor didn't see the future - they only saw the bitter past and short present," he continues. "After I became PM I gave them hope, I brought them freshness. They saw a future for their children to go to school and for their crops.
They were happy - even taxi drivers were happy - and I brought the economy back to normal."
But could he really be PM again? Shinawatra is adamant that it could happen.
"The coup is still there - it has been transformed from a military coup to a judicial coup," he explains. "I think a lot depends on the power of the people - if they feel they are in hardship and they need me to help them, I will go back.
LiberalThai Transtate
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