Thaksin Shinawatra

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Thaksin Shinawatra... a fit and proper person?
So, why all the fuss about the smiling new
owner of Manchester City? Shouldn't we
be welcoming him into the Premiership's
big, happy family?
Thaksin Shinawatra, nicknamed Na Liam or
Square Face in Thailand, already has a big,
happy and rich family from his days as a
successful businessman and then Prime
Minister but his opponents allege
corruption and claim his great wealth came
by bending the rules.
Such as?

Such as when the Shinawatra family and his
in-laws, the Damapongs, sold their Shin
Corp — Thaksin's mobile phone empire — to
Singapore's Temasek Holdings in January
2003 for around £950million and paid not a
penny in tax on the deal. Eat your hearts
out, private equity fat cats.

That must have gone down well, then?
The middle class was livid. Thaksin pointed
to regulations that allowed individuals to
sell shares on the Thai stock exchange and
pay no capital gains tax. An investigation
was launched by the securities and
exchange commission and, although his son
Panthongtae was fined £78,000 for
irregularities, Thaksin and his daughter
Pinthongta were cleared of any
wrongdoing.

All done and dusted within a
month. Eat your heart out, Lord Stevens.
Is that it?
Not quite. Thaksin also came under
investigation earlier this year over the
purchase of four plots of land worth millions
when he was Prime Minister in 2003, but the
Bank of Thailand, rather than Thaksin, was in
charge of the selling agency who insisted
the price was greater than its appraised
value.

Sounds like somebody had it in for him.
He's made many enemies since switching
from a high-ranking police job to politics,
founding his own Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love
Thais) party and being swept into office on
populist policies in 2001. The poor love him
and would have him back tomorrow. The
rest? Well, he's survived bomb attacks and
many cheered the military coup that
deposed him last September.

He is
accused of human rights violations and
opponents have likened him to Hitler,
Saddam and Pol Pot.
Bit strong that, surely?

When he declared war on the drug
methamphetamine (crystal meth), around
3,000 people died during the 'zero
tolerance' three-month clean-up
operation. Critics claimed death squads
were operating. They also point to 84
Muslim deaths at a mosque in the south
of Thailand when the army quelled an
uprising.

But despite the accusations he still
commands huge support outside
Bangkok?
Yes. The son of a wealthy Chiang Mai
merchant, he's always portrayed himself as
a man of the people, recounting how he
worked at Burger King and delivered earlymorning
newspapers while studying at
Houston, Texas, on his way up the police
ladder. Thaksin's policies on issues such as
public health, education, energy and
international relations made him the first
elected Prime Minister in Thai history to
complete his term in office and he was
comfortably re-elected in 2005. He is said to
have halved poverty in five years and also
provided affordable health care for the
majority. His main support base was the
rural poor.

So why didn't everybody embrace
Thailand's only elected Prime Minister to
serve a full term?
His government was beset by continual
allegations of corruption, treason, human
rights abuses and muzzling of the free
press. His opponents branded Thaksin a
dictator lining his own pockets. He was also
accused of selling domestic assets to
international investors when he cashed in
on Shin Corp.

Where does he stand now?
His diplomatic passport was revoked, Thai
embassies ordered not to facilitate his
travels and reporting his activities abroad
was banned or censored. His £1.3bn assets in
Thailand are frozen and he has been
ordered to return from London to face
charges. His supporters argue this is aimed
at alienating his vast rural support and
interfering with his Manchester City
takeover — a big plus in the eyes of many
football-mad Thais.


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