Former Thai leader returns from exile and goes to jail
PBS NewsHourSep 01, 2023
Former Thai PM Thaksin Moved to Hospital
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Image copyright: US Department of Defense [via Wikimedia Commons]
The Facts
Thailand's former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was on Wednesday moved to the Police General Hospital on his first night at Bangkok Remand Prison. He was sentenced to eight years in prison on Tuesday upon his return from 15 years in self-imposed exile.
Thaksin was rushed to the hospital early Wednesday morning for emergency care, after prison doctors failed to bring down his blood pressure. He was reportedly admitted with complaints of chest pain, hypertension, and low blood oxygen.
The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
Now that Thaksin is back in Thailand, the country may finally get some respite from a cycle of elections and coups, as the two-decade political feud between his faction and the royalist military elite has ended with a political compromise. The long-sought political stability will last so long as there's success in tackling deep-rooted problems and balancing urban and rural interests, but the alliance was certainly necessary to reach this point.
Establishment-critical narrative
The fact that Thaksin and his party have become allies to their once military rivals so as to cobble together a new government and let the billionaire populist return home shows that the Thai elite isn't committed to democracy at all. As supposedly opposite forces have cynically joined efforts to prevent the democratically elected Move Forward party from taking office, it's clear that their goal is exclusively to protect the status quo.
