Thaksin has been Thailand’s most prominent politician for decades, retaining outsized influence despite the years away.
A government led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, swept to power in a 2011 election, only to be ousted in a 2014 coup after relentless street protests led by his conservative enemies. Media watchdogs said he oversaw a steady erosion of press freedom. A 2003 war on drugs in which 2,500 people were killed boosted his image as a crime-buster but sparked outrage from human rights groups, who said he was riding roughshod over civil liberties.Born into a family of ethnic Chinese silk merchants in 1949 in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin became a policeman in 1973 before pursuing graduate degrees in the United States.
In 1998, he founded the Thai Rak Thai that led him to power, starting off a premiership in 2001 during which he expanded spending on healthcare, rural development and farming subsidies, his “Thaksinomics”. His opponents complained of conflict of interest, alleging that the prime minister’s family did not pay tax on capital gains from the deal.