Sis of ousted premier Thais’ first woman PM

BANGKOK—A day after her political party scored a landslide victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, the youngest sister of ousted ex-Premier Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to reconcile her deeply divided nation as its first woman prime minister.

Thaksin’s sister, 44-year-old Yingluck Shinawatra, announced an agreement on Monday to form a five-party coalition government. Her Pheu Thai party won a majority of 265 seats in the 500-seat lower house of parliament outright, according to preliminary results of Sunday’s polling.

Yingluck, a businesswoman with no political experience, said the agreement with four minor parties would boost her coalition to 299 seats. “Two hundred ninety-nine is a beautiful number,” she said at a news conference.

The election marked an extraordinary rebuke of the military-backed establishment that deposed Thaksin in a coup five years ago, and the strong mandate of Yingluck’s coalition in parliament was likely to boost stability in the short-term—a fact reflected in a sharp rise in the Thai stock market on Monday.

Thaksin’s overthrow in 2006 triggered years of political unrest in the Southeast Asian kingdom, including mass street protests launched by Thaksin’s “Red Shirt” supporters last year that were crushed in a bloody military crackdown.

No military coup

On Monday, however, concerns of renewed turmoil eased as the top defense official promised the military would not stage a coup.

Defense Minister Gen. Prawit Wongsuwon said the military would accept the opposition’s sweeping electoral win and bow to a government led by Thaksin’s sister.

“I’ve said this several times,” Prawit was quoted as saying by several Thai newspapers on Monday. “We are not going to intervene.”

Sonthi Boonyaratglin, the general who led the 2006 coup, formed his own political party and won two seats, including one for himself. He said on Sunday that he was ready to work with Pheu Thai.

For his part, the military-backed incumbent Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva resigned as leader of the outgoing ruling party, Democrat Party spokesperson Buranaj Smutharaks told The Associated Press. The Democrats won 159 seats.

‘Slap in the face’

Exiled political analyst Giles Ji Ungpakorn called the election results “a slap in the face for the dictatorship.”

“They prove without any doubt that the majority of people have rejected the military, the Democrat Party and the royalist elite,” Giles said in a statement from Britain.

“This is a new Thailand that they must learn to live with,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.

Unity, reconciliation

“This whole election is all about the awakened voices. These people discovered that they can actually have access and be connected to the system,” he added.

The accord forged by Yingluck’s Pheu Thai with four minor parties came unusually quick for Thai politics, where hard bargaining usually takes place over allocation of Cabinet seats.

The pact should strengthen Yingluck’s government-to-be, especially if legal challenges under electoral law force some of her party’s lawmakers from their positions.

Yingluck told reporters that the first mission of her government would be “how to lead the country to unity and reconciliation.”

“I myself, and Pheu Thai, are determined to serve the nation,” Yingluck said, adding that her government would boost transparency and fight corruption.

Thaksin’s reaction

Thaksin, Yingluck’s billionaire brother, was convicted of graft and lives in exile in Dubai to escape a two-year-prison sentence. Thaksin has denounced the charges are politically motivated.

Speaking in Dubai on Monday, the 61-year-old Thaksin hailed the electoral result. “The Thai people spoke. They told the world, the whole country … [that] the last five years, the country has gone nowhere,” he said.

“It’s very clear,” he said of those who cast ballots, “that they want to see reconciliation in the country, the end of the conflict … it will be a big challenge for Pheu Thai.”

Thaksin said he would stay in Dubai for the time being “doing business,” and if his sister’s party needed advice, he would give it. “If they don’t need, I don’t have to worry. The Thai people will be in good hands.”

Asked about his return to politics, Thaksin said, “I may be too old … I really want to retire.”

Thaksin and his proxies have won the country’s last four elections. By contrast, the Democrat Party—backed by big business, the military and circles around the royal palace—has not won a popular vote since 1992.

Process thwarted

Thailand’s democratic process has been repeatedly thwarted over the years, with 18 successful or attempted military coups since the 1930s.

Thaksin’s overthrow was followed by controversial court rulings which removed two of the pro-Thaksin premiers who came after—one of whom won a 2007 vote intended to restore democracy in the nation of 66 million people.

Those events took place amid anti-Thaksin “Yellow Shirt” protests in which demonstrators overran the prime minister’s office and shut both of Bangkok’s international airports in 2008.

When Abhisit built a ruling coalition with the parties that remained in parliament after the court rulings and what critics called the coerced defections of some lawmakers to his camp, pro-Thaksin “Red Shirts,” composed largely of the rural poor, took to the streets in protest.

They overran a regional summit in 2009 and paralyzed Bangkok’s wealthiest district for two months last year. Clashes that culminated in a military crackdown killed some 90 people and wounded around 1,800, mostly protesters.

Loyalty of poor

Thaksin won the loyalty of the poor as the first prime minister to address their needs, wooing them with populist programs including free health care, debt moratoriums, support for farmers and cash handouts to villages.

In the campaign, both ruling and opposition parties focused on Thaksin, the country’s most dominating and divisive personality, who has been the de facto leader of Pheu Thai from his refuge in Dubai.

A Pheu Thai slogan was “Thaksin thinks and Pheu Thai does.”

Abhisit tried to demonize Thaksin, declaring in a final political rally that the election would be “the best opportunity to remove the poison of Thaksin from Thailand.”

Long view

But the nation’s problems run deep, and analysts say that it will take many years for its conflicts to be resolved.

“We must take the long view,” said Thitinan, the Chulalongkorn international studies program director. “This is not a two-year or three-year exercise. We are talking about two or three decades of political maturation to come. It will be many years before we can reconcile the old order and the new order.”

In the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin’s home, voters at a polling station in a Buddhist temple expressed a mixture of hope and cynicism about the election.

“There’s been a huge amount of conflict in Thailand when you compare it with foreign countries,” said Kwanrudee Saengnon, 26. “It’s been a so-called democracy, not a real democracy. This time I’d like the majority to decide the winner. I really want democracy to decide the outcome.”

Watchara Sroysangwal, a 30-year-old communications company employee, said he voted for a small political party.

“I have no hope for Thailand’s future,” he said. “They can put new faces on the stage, but it’s going to be the same groups of people ruling the country anyway.” Reports from AP and New York Times News Service