October 2, 2024
CHIANG MAI – Ms Podjanin Towatrakool used to adore Thaksin Shinawatra so much that she travelled from Thailand to the United Arab Emirates on her own dime to see the former prime minister while he was living there in self-exile.
Bearing a banner, a portrait, a letter and other gifts from Thaksin fans who could not make a similar trip, the housewife from northern Chiang Mai province – now 60 years old – cried upon seeing her idol in 2009. She hugged him – from his left, and then from his right – and called the now 75-year-old man “father”.
After returning from Dubai, she covered an entire wall in her home with pictures of the billionaire. She attended pro-democracy rallies organised by the “red shirt” groups associated with Thaksin and his Pheu Thai Party. She hired a local composer to write a song about him, sang and recorded it, and sent him the CD.
These days, however, she refuses to be seen at public gatherings where he is the guest of honour. Thaksin is no longer a fugitive, having returned to Thailand in August 2023 via what is widely thought to be a political deal under which Pheu Thai ditched the election-winning Move Forward Party (MFP) to form a government with conservative factions that had long persecuted the red shirts.
Although detained over previous convictions upon his return, Thaksin spent most of his time in hospital before he was released on parole. His 38-year-old daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra is now the prime minister of Thailand. But he is thought to be the real power behind the scenes.
These developments have shaken Ms Podjanin’s faith to the core.
“I am willing to meet Thaksin in private, but I don’t want to be seen in public as a supporter of Thaksin or Pheu Thai,” Ms Podjanin told The Straits Times. “This is because I stand fully behind ‘orange’.”
Orange is shorthand for the progressive People’s Party, led by 37-year-old Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut. It is the reincarnation of the MFP, which was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in August 2024 over its campaign pledge to amend the royal defamation law. The MFP itself sprang from the ashes of the Future Forward Party – another youthful party dissolved by the same court in 2020 despite its popularity. All three parties have similar orange logos and have the same agenda – to change Thailand’s patronage-style power structure.
While the Pheu Thai-led government struggles to lift an economy troubled by high household debt and delayed public spending, the party itself is grappling with flagging political support from red shirt groups long associated with it.
The shift was apparent during the May 2023 election where the MFP wrested from Pheu Thai most of the constituency seats in Chiang Mai – the political base of the Shinawatras. It became more pronounced after Pheu Thai joined hands with royalist conservative groups to form the government in August that year.
For the red shirt activists who had demonstrated on the streets since the 2006 military coup that overthrew Thaksin, weathered a bloody crackdown in 2010, and then faced off with soldiers after the 2014 coup that ousted the then Pheu Thai government, this new alliance was a bitter pill to swallow.
The charismatic Thaksin, who served as prime minister from 2001 to 2006, endeared himself to the rural masses over two decades ago with populist programmes like the 30-baht Universal Coverage Scheme for public healthcare services, and the Village Fund micro-credit loan programme that allocated 1 million baht to each of the almost 75,000 villages in the country. He dominated Thai politics even from exile, drawing thousands of supporters to neighbouring Cambodia when he spoke at a red shirt rally there in 2012.
Thaksin-backed parties were repeatedly voted into power after earlier iterations were dissolved by Thai courts. Pheu Thai won a landslide victory in the 2011 election. In 2019 – five years after it was ousted from power by a coup – Pheu Thai won the most number of seats in the election, but was pipped to the post by a military-backed coalition.
But with questions now hanging over Pheu Thai’s political orientation, many red shirts have gone over to the “orange” side.
Mr Pijak Trakunchunpong, a 58-year-old red shirt leader in Chiang Mai, told ST that he gave the MFP and Pheu Thai one vote each during the May 2023 election. Under Thailand’s political system, voters elect their constituency representative while casting another vote for a party, which will then be allocated seats under a proportional representation system. “After Pheu Thai broke its alliance with the MFP, I went 100 per cent MFP,” he told ST. “I felt that they were pursuing benefits for themselves more than they were pursuing democracy.”
While the line between red shirts and Pheu Thai supporters used to blur, it has become more distinct recently.
“For me, red shirt means ‘pro-democracy’. Whether they support Pheu Thai is a big question,” political scientist Titipol Phakdeewanich told ST.
“We cannot associate (all) red shirts with the ‘Thaksin fan club’. Red shirts support politicians who believe in freedom and equality, and now a large number of them support the (former) Move Forward Party.”
Ms Tida Tawornseth, former chairwoman of a red shirt network called United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, said Thaksin’s decision to ally with the conservatives essentially split the red shirts.
“Now there are two kinds of red shirts,” she said. “The first are loyal to Thaksin. The second stick to their ideology and oppose the pro-military factions; this group supports the People’s Party.”
The second group, she stressed, far outnumbers the first. It wants an end to what she calls a vicious circle of royalist elites finding a way to consolidate power, no matter the election outcome.
While some of Thaksin’s magic may be wearing off, the former premier still retains devoted fans, particularly among his support base in the north and north-east. They include people like Chiang Mai red shirt leader Sonfan Patoompon, who camped out at Don Mueang International Airport in 2023 to welcome Thaksin on his return from exile.
Ms Sonfan, a 55-year-old farmer, thinks nothing of the political deal that enabled Thaksin’s return and cheers the fact that he did not spend a single day in jail for his convictions after that – something which his opponents have decried as preferential treatment.
“I will go to any Pheu Thai activity that I can attend. I go because I love and respect and believe in Thaksin,” she told ST near her home in the mountain-ringed sub-district of Nam Bo Luang in Chiang Mai.
Ms Sonfan was one of the first few beneficiaries of the controversial 10,000 baht (S$400) per person giveaway pledged by Pheu Thai during the 2023 election.
The one-time payments to an estimated 45 million citizens, expected to cost around 450 billion baht, were deposited into recipients’ bank accounts from Sept 25.
Ms Sonfan said she would spend the cash only on red shirt activities.
Referring to Thaksin’s 30-baht healthcare and village fund schemes, she said: “Pheu Thai creates economies that can feed you.”
And while some experts have questioned the efficacy of the 10,000-baht handout, Ms Sonfan sees it as yet more evidence that the party makes good on its pledges. “Once the party promises something, you will get it sooner or later. We can wait.”
She dismisses the younger generation’s faith in the People’s Party, which she associates with attempts to overthrow the monarchy.
“I am not going to vote for any other party,” she said. “My children say we have to vote orange to change the country. I tell them, how can you change the country when you don’t even do the dishes at home?”