The country has become more polarized in the years since Mr. Thaksin and his sister left. The split between the “red shirt” pro-Thaksin protesters from the rural north and the “yellow shirt” anti-Thaksin faction made up of royalists and the urban elite remains. A new political divide has also emerged — one that runs along generational lines.
In 2020, tens of thousands of mostly young protesters gathered in the streets of Bangkok, calling for democratic reform, and, most surprisingly, checks on the monarchy’s power, a previously taboo subject in a country where criticism of the institution can lead to a maximum 15-year prison sentence.
Once a stable ally of the United States, Thailand has moved closer to China under the military junta that ousted the Shinawatras. The country reported the slowest economic growth in Southeast Asia last year compared with other major economies in the region. Many Thais blame Prime Minister Prayuth, who is trailing in the polls.
Echoing Mr. Thaksin’s populist policies, Pheu Thai has pledged cash handouts and an increase in the minimum wage to $18 a day from the current average of $10.
Known widely by her nickname, “Ung Ing,” Ms. Paetongtarn is the third child of Mr. Thaksin and Potjaman Na Pombejra, who divorced Mr. Thaksin in 2008. As a little girl, she shadowed her father while he campaigned and played golf. She graduated with a degree in political science from Chulalongkorn University and then studied international hotel management at the University of Surrey in England.
In a 2022 television interview, Ms. Paetongtarn recalled the day the army launched the coup against her father, when she was 20. She was studying with a friend when her mother called and told her to come home: “The tanks are out.” “Confused, I thought to myself: ‘What is a tank?’” Ms. Paetongtarn recalled. She said she cried and feared for the safety of her family.
“The country needs to move forward,” she said in the same television interview.
Mr. Thaksin said his daughter was drafted into politics after people said, “they wanted to see a Shinawatra family representative as a force in the party.” They had asked for a volunteer, “and Paetongtarn answered the call,” he told Nikkei Asia, a Japanese news outlet.
Source : Nytimes
