With the flood waters mercifully receding in much of the country, normal service has resumed in Thai politics — and that means talking obsessively about Thaksin Shinawatra. The former prime minister, ousted in a coup in 2006, has been living in exile since 2008 to avoid going to prison for corruption on charges that he has always claimed were politically motivated.
But now, with a new government in power led, very handily, by his younger sister Yingluck, it seems that it has become a matter of when, not whether, he returns to his native land.
The new government has begun "exploring every avenue to bring Thaksin back", according to Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an analyst of Thai politics at the Institute of South-East Asian Studies in Singapore. In mid-December it was revealed that Thaksin had been given a new Thai passport. Until then he had been travelling on Nicaraguan and Montenegrin documents. Now the government is working on an amnesty bill aimed at pardoning those jailed for political offences over the past few years. This will cover not just many of their own "red shirt" supporters but also leaders of the monarchist, anti-Thaksinites known as the "yellow shirts". Crucially, it will also find ways to take in Thaksin himself. The legislation might be passed by parliament before the middle of the year.
Thaksin remains a highly controversial and divisive figure in Thailand. So even his own sister's government will have to proceed cautiously. The government shied away from pressing for a royal pardon on the occasion of King Bhumibol's birthday on December 5, wary of the backlash from the yellow-shirt movement that this would surely have provoked. Indeed, many fear that, however crafty the government is in eventually getting Thaksin back, the issue risks overshadowing much else that Yingluck wants to do.
Her stress on national reconciliation, one of her main campaign themes last year, will begin to look hollow if she exhausts all her political capital merely to secure a safe passage back to Thailand for one man, simply out of family loyalty. Besides, some wonder whether Thaksin really needs to come back at all, given that he shows every sign of running the Thai government perfectly well from abroad. He has a grip over appointments to the cabinet and he sends an incessant stream of advice to ministers and members of parliament. Thaksin also seems to have become as good as a foreign emissary for his sister too.
He visited Myanmar last month. In his own words, this was to "smooth the way" for Yingluck's meeting with the apparently reformist president, Thein Sein. Before that, he was in Cambodia to ease tensions over a border dispute with Thailand that blew up under the previous government of Abhisit Vejjajiva. He has also been spotted on missions to Singapore and Hong Kong.
