Disappearing act
Thailand’s former prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, may have fled
The ruling junta would not be entirely sorry to see her go
The ruling junta would not be entirely sorry to see her go
Aug 25th 2017
Source: The Economist
SHELTERING under road bridges, hundreds of supporters of Yingluck Shinawatra, the Thai prime minister who was ousted in a coup in 2014, had gathered in Bangkok on August 25th. Threats of arrest and thousands of police had failed to keep them from the Supreme Court as they waited patiently on pavements and plastic chairs. They had been expecting the verdict to be announced in a case against Ms Yingluck for incompetence in a rice-subsidy scheme which cost the government around $16bn. They had also hoped to catch a glimpse of their champion.
Ms Yingluck had other ideas. Her lawyer told the court’s head judge that she was too unwell to appear. “The court does not believe she is sick,” the judge declared and sought an arrest warrant. Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former general who is Thailand’s prime minister, admitted he did not know whether she was still in Thailand. Reuters, a news agency, quoted sources close to the Shinawatra family as saying that Ms Yingluck had fled; other reports say she may have travelled to Singapore via Cambodia as early as August 23rd, and possibly from there to Dubai. (The Supreme Court still had other business to conclude on August 25th: it imposed a 42-year sentence on Ms Yingluck’s former commerce minister, who was being tried separately for offences related to those she is alleged to have committed.)
The flight of a formerly powerful politician ahead of a court verdict is not a new phenomenon in Thailand. Ms Yingluck’s billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was prime minister between 2001 and 2006, escaped nine years ago before the conclusion of a graft case. Critics of Ms Yingluck claim that he pulled the strings from self-imposed exile during his sister’s time in power. Like him, she pursued populist policies, such as the rice scheme, which pleased their largely rural supporters known as “red shirts” and angered royalist rivals, or “yellow shirts”.
If Ms Yingluck has indeed fled, it would mean the loss of a political figurehead for the red shirts, says Michael Montesano of the Institute of South-East Asian Studies (ISEAS), a think-tank in Singapore. A prison term might have turned her into more of a political martyr in her supporters’ eyes, and boosted their admiration of her. A demoralised opposition could bode ill for a return to democracy. (A thrice-delayed general election is due to be held next year.) The Shinawatra clan has won every election held in the country since 2001 that the military has permitted to take place. The ruling junta would have fewer obstacles to maintaining its grip.
The timing would be convenient for the generals. A fine or a suspended jail sentence, or a combination of the two, had seemed the most likely outcome of Ms Yingluck’s trial. But a jail sentence, possibly as long as ten years, was also possible. That might have fuelled unrest: a mere freeze on Ms Yingluck’s assets in recent months triggered a public outcry. Were she to be acquitted, the junta’s authority would be undermined. Corruption, such as that which plagued the rice scheme on Ms Yingluck’s watch, has been cited by the junta as a justification for its coup.
Depressing cycles of elections, protests, coups and military regimes dominate Thai politics. They do not heal the fundamental rift between populists and those who back a royalist system that can confer benefits on members of the elite who defend it. The latest furore comes at a sensitive moment, just two months before the cremation in October of the country’s much loved king, Bhumibol Adulyadej (who died in 2016 and was succeeded by his less popular son, Maha Vajiralongkorn). Thailand is again on edge.
