Former Thai leader Thaksin jailed after return from exile

Thailand's former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was on Tuesday jailed upon returning to the country after 15 years in exile. Hundreds of supporters wearing red gathered in the streets to welcome the beloved billionaire politician. 

Thaksin landed in a private jet at Bangkok's Don Mueang airport at 9am local time, greeted by hundreds of Red Shirt supporters waving banners and singing songs.

He emerged briefly from the terminal building to bow and offer a floral garland at a portrait of King Maha Vajiralongkorn as a mark of respect before waving to crowds.

The 74-year-old was taken directly to the Supreme Court where he was ordered to serve eight years for three convictions passed in his absence.

One linked to his former Shin Corp company, another linked to a bank loan, and a lottery case.

Thaksin has said he was willing to face justice in order to return home and see his grandchildren – though he has long maintained the criminal charges against him are politically motivated.

The timing of Thaksin's return, with his party on the verge of assuming power, has led many to speculate that a backroom deal has been done to allow him leniency for the length of his jail term.

Just a few hours after his arrival in Bangkok, the parliament began voting on whether to approve business tycoon Srettha Thavisin as prime minister at the head of a coalition led by the Pheu Thai party – the latest incarnation of Thaksin's political movement.

Influential, beloved

For all his long absence from the country, Thaksin remains Thailand's most influential and controversial politician of modern times.

His career has included two election victories, defeat in a coup, criminal charges and the long years of self-imposed exile in Dubai.

Loved by the rural poor for policies including cheap healthcare and the minimum wage, he is reviled by the pro-military and royalist elite who saw his rule as corrupt, authoritarian and a threat to Thai social order.

The country has been beset by political turmoil since Thaksin was ousted in the 2006 coup and had much of his fortune seized by court order.

Tens of thousands of pro-Thaksin and rival pro-establishment supporters took to the streets swamped Bangkok with a scarlet tide in 2009 and 2010 to demand new elections.

Those protests ended with a military crackdown that left nearly 100 people dead and reduced parts of downtown Bangkok to rubble.

Delicate partnership

Parties linked to Thaksin have dominated elections since 2001 until this year, when the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) won the most seats in May's polls.

But MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat saw his bid to become PM sunk by conservative junta-appointed senators, who were spooked by his party's determination to reform royal insult laws and tackle business monopolies.

After MFP dropped out, Pheu Thai cooked up a controversial coalition of a dozen parties including those of former coup-makers who ousted Thaksin's sister Yingluck as PM in 2014.

The partnership has outraged many Pheu Thai supporters.

Aaron Connelly, a Southeast Asian politics expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies said the party would expect a payoff.

"If he (Thaksin) doesn't receive a royal pardon within a certain amount of time then they might begin to question whether they entered a coalition under false pretences," he told French news agency AFP.

(with AFP)