Thai Politics - Now What?

Thai politics - now what?

The former Thai Premier Taksin Shinawatana has returned to Thailand to fight his corruption cases on February 26, 2008. Will his return be developed into a social turmoil as many have feared?

The day on his return, CNN and Reuter reported that Taksin will certainly not abandon politics as he had vowed in many occasions. Foreign news media apparently raised a question as to whether Thailand will now have two Premiers concurrently. Samak Soontorawed, the elected Premier, has been regarded as a nominee or a puppet of Taksin. Samak took the interrogation as an insult and blasted out in his habitual blatantly style when answering a reporter's question as being senseless.

Yet, few days before Taksin's return, his former personal lawyer and hand-picked current Foreign Minister of Samak's cabinet issued a Ministerial order to return Taksin's official Prime-Minister passport to him. The Minister is also reported to be threatening to remove the Thai Ambassador to Britain for miss-conducts. Taksin had since been in self imposing exile and sought his residency in Britain when he was ousted by the military coup 18 months ago. He is known to be displeased with the Thai Ambassador to Britain in many occasions while in London.

Few days after his return, four top key government officers were lightening transferred to an inactive posts with unreasonable explanations or no explanation at all of the removal. A move interpreted not only as to please Taksin, but more importantly to help him out in his corruption fighting cases in the judicial system.

The first butchered lamb was the D.S.I. (equivalent to F.B.I.) chief Mr. Sunai. D.S.I. is one of the major government units in investigating corrupted officers and in the many cases of Taksin's corruption charges. Sunai has since submitted 2 of Taksin's cases to the government attorney general. His removal will certainly weaken evidences to be presented to the court later.