🇹🇭 Thaksin's back, Srettha's up and it's all happening all at once

Hello friends!

A huge day in Thailand so no cute intro from me.

Erin Cook

Pheu Thai has firmed up an alliance including itself and 10 other parties — Prayuth Chan-o-cha’s relatively new home of United Thai Nation Party and the Prawit Wongsuwan-led Palang Pracharat Party. If you’re thinking, hold on! Aren’t those the fellas who tore down the last Pheu Thai government? Yes. 

And I thought a coalition of eight dominated by Move Forward and Pheu Thai would be hard to corral! 

In some respects, Phue Thai was damned if they did, sidelined if they didn’t. “To move the Pheu Thai Party forward, to help the people, we are not lying to the people but we have to be realistic,” Srettha Thavisin said at a press conference yesterday, as per Reuters. “Over the past nine years Pheu Thai was not in government, we didn't have power, it is clear people's living standards dropped.” 

Sure, but who wants this? A survey released by the National Institute of Development Administration on Sunday showed 64% of respondents either ‘disagreed or totally disagreed’ with the alliance, also ℅ Reuters. 

“Of course, Pheu Thai has the price to pay, that is the criticism of the people. We humbly accept and apologise for making many disappointed and sad,” Paetongtarn Shinawatra, also one of three possible PMs from Pheu Thai, said. 

The grouping gives Pheu Thai’s prime minister candidate Srettha 314 votes in the House for today’s next round and presumably greased the wheels a good deal in the military-appointed senate. It will also see some of the more exciting reforms floated by Move Forward and wearily eyed by Pheu Thai ditched entirely — the 112 lese majeste laws will not be touched, according to Bangkok Post. 

When I send this Tuesday morning, Pheu Thai will be getting ready for its vote in the House for Srettha to do what Pita Limjaroenrat could not — become prime minister. Srettha isn’t a down in the coal mine Pheu Thai activist. The 60-year-old candidate has spent decades at the top of Bangkok’s property tycoon elite but, Patpicha Tanakasempipat notes in her explainer for Bloomberg, he has long been unusually vocal in his political beliefs an support for LGBT rights, a rarity in Thai business leaders. 

Pheu Thai entered the election with three PM candidates: Srettha, Chaikasem Nitisiri and Paetongtarn. This gives the party plenty of wriggle room if Srettha fails to make the count today. But, Patpicha reports, there’s also another option. If Pheu Thai proves a little too stinky for the senators to hold their noses over, the coalition could nominate Anutin Charnvirakul, the boss of the Bhumjaithai Party which finished third overall. He was the Minister of Health throughout the pandemic and, notably, was the major advocate of relaxing Thailand’s marijuana laws recently. 

This isn’t even the big story today. 

Thaksin Shinawatra is back! After many false starts, most recently earlier this month, the former prime minister returned to Bangkok this morning. Thaksin heading into exile and dodging cases is well before this newsletter’s time (in fact, DMKM was still a baby when Yingluck followed her brother’s footsteps!) so I have nothing to link back to.

He was welcomed at DMK with a sea of red shirt-wearing supporters and Pheu Thai MPs, the entire Bangkok journalist community and a lot of security, according to Bangkok Post. Police have previously said he would be arrested and taken to the Supreme Court for a quick welcome home hearing and then taken to jail, Reuters reported earlier. Not even time for a Khao Soi. 

He is widely expected to receive a royal pardon at some stage. 

Less immediately dramatic, but potentially just as juicy is the return of two other, more lowkey players in Thai high politics. Vacharaesorn Vivacharawongse, the King’s second oldest son, popped up in Bangkok earlier in the month for the first time in years. He’s been living in the US since his parents divorced all the way back in 1996 after his royal title was stripped. He was joined shortly after by brother Chakriwat Vivacharawongse, the King’s third son. CNN notes the arrivals have set off a flurry of rumours given King Maha Vajiralongkorn has not yet named a successor, despite ascending in 2016. 

Craig Keating cracked in for Lowy Institute’s Interpreter and it only adds to the intrigue. Neither brother, Keating writes, was included in the official celebrations for their grandmother Queen Mother Sirikit’s birthday on August 12 but ‘it is inconceivable their visit would have proceeded without Vajiralongkorn’s blessing.’

The brothers’ half-siblings have their own problems — one half-sister is on life support, another is wildly out of touch and the 18-year-old half-brother is believed to be ‘mentally challenged’ — leading to much speculation Vajiralongkorn has had to look elsewhere. 

Might be time to revisit those last chapters of Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles. 

🇰🇭 A changing of the guard

It’s official in Cambodia. He is now ‘former prime minister Hun Sen.’ 

Parliament this morning formally elected heir-apparent Hun Manet as prime minister, ‘sealing a dynastic handover of power after last month's one-sided election,’ as the AFP so succinctly puts it. “Today is a historical day for Cambodia,” Prime Minister Hun Manet said. 

I just got a notification that the vote in Thailand is beginning so we’ll revisit this later in the week — I gotta send now!