Finally, Thailand's Thaksin Goes To Prison

Local media showed Thaksin being transported to Bangkok Remand Prison in an air-conditioned police van – a face-losing image he had clearly sought to avoid when he first returned to Thailand in August 2023, when he was seen prostrating before an image of Vajiralongkorn before proceeding to elude even a single night in a prison cell.

Thaksin's perceived lenient treatment sparked a firestorm among royalist rivals who felt he had violated the terms of an unspoken royal deal that allowed his return to the kingdom in exchange for transforming his red-clad and often anti-royal movement into a yellow-washed bastion of loyalty to the crown. That fury frothed as he overtly ruled his daughter's government from only barely behind the scenes.

It remains unclear if Thaksin had expected to receive a full pardon of his eight-year sentence and was surprised upon landing to learn that he owed eight months behind bars, setting in motion his bogus ill-health claims. Nor is it clear whether earlier“ethical” court decisions against Srettha and Paetongtarn were cloaked palace punishment for Thaksin's prison dodge.

Speculation is already rife that Thaksin, 76, could receive yet another royal pardon allowing for his early release, a new deal possibly timed with national holidays commemorating the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was on the throne when Thaksin was toppled and his Red Shirts stirred anti-monarchy sentiment.

Bigger political questions swirl around the future of Thaksin's Peua Thai party, currently the second-largest in parliament but now in opposition after Paetongtarn's fall amid a nationalistic surge over her bungling of Cambodia border tensions and perceptions she and her father put personal ties and business deals before national interests in dealing with strongman Hun Sen.

Last week, nine Peua Thai MPs broke ranks to vote for Bhumjaithai Party leader Anutin Charnvirakul as the nation's next prime minister, derailing Thaksin's last-gasp bid to make Peua Thai's last eligible candidate, the bland ex-attorney general Chaikasem Nitisiri, the kingdom's next leader.

Chaikasem, who, like the top-ranking progressive People's Party, had advocated for reform of the draconian lese majeste law, frequently and severely used to stifle any calumny or slight of the royal family, failed to win the upstart party's support despite vowing to immediately dissolve the House and call snap elections recent polls show the People's Party would win in a romp.

Instead, the People's Party backed Anutin's pledge to fast-track constitutional reform call new elections within four months, a timeline few analysts believe he will honor as long as his and his party's popularity languishes in opinion surveys. A NIDA poll conducted in late June showed only 9.6% of Thais supported Anutin as premier, while just 9.8% favored Bhumjaithai.

Some suspect the royal-loyal Anutin may have hinted at possible leniency in a long-pending lese majeste-related case that threatens to ban 44 People's Party members, including 25 sitting MPs. If true, it could mark the first sign of a palace rapprochement with the young party that swept Bangkok in the 2023 election.

If so, it would also reflect a well-worn carrot-and-stick approach judging by Monday's lese-majeste ruling against People's Party MP Chonthicha Jangrew, who was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for a 2020 Facebook post critical of royal spending. She plans to appeal the ruling.

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That type of legal pressure may persuade the People's Party to allow Anutin's minority government, which some say has the hallmarks of a royally-constructed coup administration with its appointment of conservative technocrats with no known links to Bhumjaithai to top-most portfolios, to remain in place longer than the agreed four months.

That would give Bhumjaithai more time to court opportunistic Peua Thai MPs who may decide their political futures will be better served by Anutin's largesse than Thaksin's call for loyalty from behind bars. The People's Party may also benefit from defections among Peua Thai MPs who never fully embraced Thaksin's pivot from pro-democracy red to pro-establishment yellow.

Still, the wily Thaksin has been counted out before only to regroup and retake power through one pliable proxy or another. While his messaging on the way to prison today was contrite and humble, he will no doubt seek to frame his time behind bars – however brief and air-conditioned – as the plight of a persecuted democrat.

Whether that narrative will rejuvenate and unify his beleaguered and splintering Peua Thai party and resonate the same with the rural masses after his deep and repeated bows to a conservative establishment he once openly despised will become clear soon enough at the next polls – at which he may very well be in a cell rather than on the campaign trail.

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