Global Courant 2023-05-09 10:15:00
BANGKOK — Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as Thailand’s prime minister in 2006 and has been living in self-imposed exile for more than a decade after a corruption conviction, said he planned to return to Thailand’s southeastern region before his 74th birthday. Asian nation. July.
“I have decided to go home in July, for my birthday, to raise my grandchildren,” Thaksin said in a tweet on Tuesday, his second this month on the controversial topic of returning home.
“It has been almost 17 years since I had to be separated from my family. I’m getting old.”
Mr Thaksin’s tweet comes days before Thailand’s general election on Sunday, in which the Pheu Thai party his sister Yingluck Shinawatra once led is expected to win the most seats in the 500-member House of Representatives.
His youngest daughter, Ms. Paetongtarn Shinawatra, is one of the party’s three prime ministerial candidates and also one of the frontrunners to take the prime ministership from incumbent Prayut Chan-o-cha, a former army chief who left the government in 2014. of Mrs. Yingluck.
On May 1, Ms. Paetongtarn gave birth to a baby boy in the midst of an election campaign in which Pheu Thai garnered a solid lead in some polls against former generals seeking to extend nearly a decade of military-backed rule.
While the vote is scheduled for May 14, it could be weeks or months before a prime minister is elected, as the military-appointed 250-member Senate will vote alongside the House of Representatives to decide who gets the top job.
Political parties affiliated with Mr Thaksin have won the most seats in any national ballot dating back to 2001, but were removed from power through dissolutions or coups.
Pheu Thai also won the most seats in the 2019 election under rules seen as designed to hurt his performance. After that, Prayut returned to power with the support of a military-backed coalition.
Thaksin tweeted last week seeking “permission” to return to Thailand after the birth of his seventh grandchild.
He had recently said he would like to return, even if it meant going to prison, adding that he did not want the government to push for an amnesty – something Ms Yingluck’s government had initiated before she was overthrown in a coup in 2014. BLOOMBERG
