Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will return from 15 years of exile next month, according to his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra, a prime minister candidate for the party he helped found.
Thaksin turned 74 today, and Paetongtarn’s morning announcement comes nearly three months after he vowed to return due to old age and a desire to spend time with his family. Paetongtarn’s Instagram post wished her father a happy birthday and put a date on his flight home: Aug. 10.
“July 26 of every year is an important day for me, but this year I don’t believe what I am about to type – dad will be coming back home August 10 at Don Mueang Airport,” she wrote.
Paetongtarn said today was Thaksin’s 17th birthday abroad, and that her family was filled with both joy and concern.
“To anyone who read this far, my father is one Thai man, a prime minister who achieved the most and faced countless challenges. His decision to return home this time is something my dad has talked about in earnest since the beginning of 2023,” she continued.
Thaksin, who was ousted by the military in 2006 and convicted in absentia two years later for abusing power and malfeasance, made waves in May prior to the elections by declaring he would return in July.
Prior to the elections, the fugitive founder of what today is Pheu Thai Party, congratulated newly elected lawmakers and the Move Forward Party for outperforming his team and sought to dismiss fears he would broker a secret deal to form a competing government.
With Move Forward party leader Pita Limjaroenrat now disqualified in his bid for the position of PM, the Pheu Thai party are in talks with forming a coalition with military-backed parties that they initially sided against.
Thaksin has said he will submit himself to the legal process upon his return. Prior to his 2008 conviction, he left Thailand, ostensibly to visit the Beijing Olympics, and never returned. He denounced his convictions as politically motivated and has lived abroad since. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra was elected in 2011, only to have unrest break out over suspicions that her government was engineering Thaksin’s return through an amnesty bill.
Supporters of the military and elite status quo staged large demonstrations until Prayuth and his military cronies seized power in 2014. Uprooting the Shinawatra’s influence became a fixation of the newly installed junta.
There are two outstanding cases against Thaksin before the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
Paetongtarn, 36, is one of Pheu Thai’s three candidates for the premiership, though the party is believed to favor real estate tycoon Srettha Thavisin for the nomination.
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