分类： politics

Against the backdrop of a prolonged Middle East conflict that has upended global energy markets, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a public appeal for nationwide austerity measures to cushion the economic blow of skyrocketing global energy prices. Addressing a gathering in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Sunday, Modi outlined a series of voluntary cuts to energy and import-reliant consumption, framing the choices as an act of modern-day patriotism amid an unprecedented national economic challenge.

For nearly 30 years, no single figure has shaped Thai politics more profoundly than Thaksin Shinawatra – a former police officer turned business magnate turned prime minister, whose legacy remains one of the most divisive and influential forces in modern Southeast Asian politics, even decades after he first left office.

Thaksin’s path to power began in 1949, when he was born in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. He launched his professional career as a police officer, earning a government scholarship in 1973 to pursue a master’s degree in criminal justice in the United States. Upon returning to Thailand, he pivoted to the private sector, building a billion-dollar telecommunications empire by the end of the 1980s. In 1998, he launched his own political vehicle, the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) Party, a movement that rapidly upended Thailand’s decades-old political order.

In the 2001 general election, Thaksin stormed to electoral victory in a landslide, defeating the long-dominant traditional establishment of the Democrat Party. His populist platform resonated deeply across class lines: low-income and rural voters flocked to his promises of low-cost universal healthcare and widespread debt relief, paired with his unapologetic criticism of the entrenched Bangkok elite and nationalist policy agenda. Meanwhile, big business embraced his CEO-style governance and pro-growth “Thaksinomics” policies, which pulled Thailand out of the economic stagnation left by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and sparked a new national economic boom. Thaksin also earned widespread praise for his swift, coordinated response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which devastated large swathes of southwestern Thailand.

But his tenure was not without sharp controversy. He faced widespread public and international criticism for the 2003 war on drugs, which left more than 2,500 people dead in extrajudicial killings, as well as a scandal over his government’s decision to cover up an outbreak of avian flu. Thailand’s anti-corruption commission found he had failed to disclose his full personal wealth (though he was ultimately acquitted on that charge), and he faced heavy backlash over his government’s handling of rising separatist violence in the country’s Muslim-majority southern region. Backed by his loyal base of rural supporters, who adopted the color red and became known as the “red shirts” movement, Thaksin weathered every political storm: he made history as Thailand’s first elected prime minister to complete a full four-year term, and won a landslide re-election in 2005.

Even as he built unparalleled popular support, Thaksin emerged as a deeply polarizing figure, drawing fierce opposition from Thailand’s conservative establishment: the Bangkok elite, the royal military, and pro-monarchy activists, who adopted the color yellow and became known as the “yellow shirts” movement. It was a business deal that ultimately triggered his ouster: in early 2006, Thaksin’s family sold its stake in Shin Corp, the country’s largest telecommunications group, netting $1.9 billion. The deal sparked mass public anger, with critics arguing the family had illegally avoided tax obligations and transferred control of a critical national asset to foreign investors based in Singapore.

Amid months of massive street protests, Thaksin called a snap general election in April 2006 to force a popular verdict on his leadership. Main opposition parties boycotted the vote, and a large share of ballots were cast as informal “no votes.” Thaksin initially announced he would step down, only to return to office just a month later. By September 2006, with months of political gridlock and unrest paralyzing the country, the Royal Thai Army seized power in a military coup while Thaksin was traveling abroad.

What followed has been 18 years of political upheaval, with Thaksin pulling the strings of Thai politics from exile and through a dynastic line of proxy leaders. After briefly returning to Thailand following a 2007 election won by his allies, courts empowered by the new military-backed constitution opened a wave of corruption cases against Thaksin and his family. Convicted of corruption, Thaksin fled Thailand once again, beginning 15 years of self-imposed exile centered primarily in Dubai. Even from abroad, he retained control of his political movement: Thai Rak Thai was dissolved in 2007, its successor the People’s Power Party was dissolved in 2008, but the third iteration – Pheu Thai Party – survived. In 2011, Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra led Pheu Thai to a landslide victory, becoming Thailand’s first female prime minister, before she too was ousted by a court disqualification and a second military coup. In the 2019 election, Pheu Thai won more seats than any rival party, but was blocked from forming government by conservative parties allied with the military.

It was not until the 2023 election that the Shinawatra political dynasty saw a shift in fortunes. In a major upset, the progressive Move Forward Party won the most seats in the lower house of parliament, forcing Thailand’s long-standing anti-Thaksin conservatives to strike a grand bargain with Pheu Thai to exclude Move Forward from power. As part of the deal, Thaksin returned to Thailand in 2023 after 15 years in exile, and was greeted by hundreds of cheering supporters upon landing in Bangkok.

He was immediately taken to the Supreme Court to begin serving an eight-year prison sentence for his decades-old corruption convictions, which Thaksin has always maintained were politically motivated. Within 24 hours, however, he was transferred to a luxury private ward at Police General Hospital after reporting heart complications. Following a formal plea for royal clemency, the King of Thailand commuted his sentence to just one year. Thaksin remained in the hospital for six months before receiving parole and returning to his private Bangkok residence.

That peace did not last. In September 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that Thaksin’s extended hospital stay had been unlawful, finding the former prime minister “knew or could perceive that he was not in a critical or emergency condition.” He was immediately taken to prison to serve out the remainder of his one-year sentence. In a separate high-profile case that same month, a court acquitted Thaksin of charges of lese-majeste – insulting the monarchy – which carry decades-long prison sentences in Thailand.

The same month that Thaksin was sent back to prison, his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who had become prime minister in 2024 after the coalition’s original leader was removed by the constitutional court, was also disqualified and removed from office over a leaked controversial phone call with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. A breakaway faction from the Pheu Thai-led coalition subsequently installed a new prime minister from outside the Shinawatra circle.

Despite the string of major political and legal setbacks, both Thaksin and his family have vowed to continue their political fight. In a public statement released to social media shortly after the Supreme Court ordered his return to prison, the 76-year-old former prime minister wrote: “even though I lose my physical freedom, I will still have freedom of thought for the benefit of my country and its people. I will maintain my physical and mental strength to spend the rest of my life serving the monarchy, Thailand and the Thai people.”

For three decades, Thaksin Shinawatra has dominated Thai politics, surviving coups, convictions, and exiles – and even behind bars, he remains one of the most powerful forces shaping the country’s future.

BANGKOK — Decades of polarizing Thai political drama took a new turn on Monday, as former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra walked free from Bangkok’s Klong Prem Central Prison, eight months into a one-year corruption-related sentence. Hundreds of cheering supporters and political allies gathered outside the prison walls to welcome the 76-year-old populist billionaire, who has reshaped Thailand’s political landscape over the past 25 years.

Thaksin’s family, including his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra — the former prime minister and one of Thaksin’s three children — arrived hours early to wait for his release. When Thaksin emerged from the prison gate dressed in a white polo shirt and blue trousers, he was immediately embraced by his relatives. Smiling broadly, he walked through the crowd of supporters, who chanted “we love Thaksin” and presented him with red roses, a long-standing symbol of his political movement. He left the prison compound without addressing waiting reporters.

Roughly an hour after his release, Thaksin arrived at his private residence in western Bangkok. In live footage streamed by local outlet Thairath News, he rolled down his car window to greet a small group of well-wishers gathered outside his gate. When pressed by reporters shouting questions about his time in custody, he joked, “I was in hibernation, I can’t remember anything now.”

Thaksin’s political career traces a dramatic arc that fundamentally split Thai society. A successful telecommunications tycoon, he launched his own political party in 1998, won election in 2001, and made history as the first elected prime minister to complete a full four-year term. His signature policies — including a universal national healthcare program and infrastructure investments connecting remote rural regions — earned him fierce loyalty among working-class and poor communities across northern and northeastern Thailand. But his outsized popularity and blunt governing style created deep, enduring rifts with Thailand’s established power blocs: urban elites, royalist factions, and the military. These tensions boiled over in 2006, when a military coup ousted Thaksin while he was traveling abroad. He spent 15 years in self-imposed exile, arguing that the judicial cases filed against him were political persecution carried out by his opponents.

The 2006 coup set off nearly 20 years of intermittent political upheaval and deadly clashes between pro- and anti-Thaksin factions, even as successive iterations of his political machine repeatedly won general elections. Thaksin only returned to Thailand in 2023, as his latest political party, Pheu Thai, negotiated to form a new ruling government. He was immediately taken into custody to face the long-standing abuse of power convictions that had been handed down in absentia, which included charges of using his office to benefit his personal business empire and improperly approving a state lottery project that caused public financial losses.

Originally sentenced to eight years in prison, Thaksin saw his term commuted to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn. For months, he was allowed to serve his sentence in a private suite at Bangkok’s Police Hospital on medical grounds, sparking widespread public anger over claims of unfair preferential treatment. In September 2025, the Supreme Court ordered him to transfer to the general prison population to serve out the remainder of his term.

Last month, a Justice Ministry review panel approved Thaksin’s parole application alongside more than 900 other eligible inmates, justifying the decision by citing his good behavior behind bars, his advanced age, and the low risk he would reoffend. Following his release, Thaksin will serve a four-month probation period, during which he is required to live at his registered Bangkok address, wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, and check in regularly with probation authorities.

Thaksin’s release comes at a turbulent moment for his political bloc. Paetongtarn, his daughter, became Thailand’s youngest prime minister in 2024, but was removed from office by the Constitutional Court in August 2025 after an leaked recording of a controversial phone call with former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was made public. In the most recent 2025 general election, Pheu Thai placed third overall, weakening the party’s position in coalition negotiations.

At 76 years old, after two decades of self-imposed exile and eight months behind bars, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has walked out of a Bangkok prison, tagged with an electronic ankle monitoring bracelet to serve the remainder of his one-year sentence for corruption and abuse of power convictions tied to his 2001-2006 tenure in office. His release dominated national headlines this week, and despite repeated assurances from Thaksin’s long-dominant Pheu Thai Party that the former leader will step away from frontline politics, widespread media and public speculation continues to swirl over what influence he may still wield over Thailand’s fractious political sphere.

Thaksin’s outsized impact on Thai politics over the past quarter-century is impossible to overstate. A charismatic, self-made billionaire who won a landslide election in 2001, he rapidly reshaped the country’s policy landscape, building a deeply loyal base of working-class and rural supporters while drawing fierce opposition from Thailand’s established conservative and royalist institutions. Even after a 2006 military coup ousted him from power, political parties aligned with Thaksin continued to win every subsequent national election – a streak that triggered repeated interventions from the courts, mass violent street protests, and a second military coup in 2014.

For years after 2014, Thaksin operated his political movement from exile abroad, until a high-profile 2023 “grand bargain” with his long-time conservative opponents allowed him to return to Thailand to resume informal leadership of his party after it returned to government. Despite public claims that he intended to retire to spend time with family, political observers have long noted Thaksin has repeatedly shown an unwillingness to cede control of the movement he built.

This release, however, comes at a moment of profound change for Thai politics that could mark the definitive end of Thaksin’s decades-long dominance. Just months after his 2023 homecoming, Thailand’s Supreme Court ruled that Thaksin’s six-month stay in a police hospital shortly after his return was a deliberate ploy to avoid serving his prison sentence, and ordered him jailed last September. The ruling came only two weeks after Thailand’s Constitutional Court dismissed Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra from the prime ministership, over a leaked private phone call with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen regarding bilateral border dispute negotiations.

During Thaksin’s time in prison, Pheu Thai suffered its worst ever electoral performance in the country’s February general election. The party fell to third place, outperformed by both the reformist People’s Party and the conservative Bhumjaithai Party, which capitalized on a surge in nationalist sentiment following a border conflict with Cambodia. Reduced to a junior coalition partner in the new administration, Pheu Thai now holds far less political sway than it did for most of the past two decades.

Political analyst Ken Lohatepanont notes that Thaksin is re-entering public life in a Thailand unrecognizable from the political order he once dominated. “Thaksin emerges from prison to a new political environment,” he explained. “Pheu Thai has been sidelined as just a mid-sized party. You can never count Thaksin out, but the challenge that he and his Party face is of a different magnitude to those he has faced in the past. Pheu Thai will have to decide whether a public comeback for Thaksin will boost the party, or whether the party might be better served by placing the spotlight on their newer generation leaders.”

Debate remains ongoing over why the 2023 grand bargain between Thaksin and Thailand’s royalist conservative establishment collapsed so rapidly. Some observers question whether conservative factions always intended to use judicial rulings to dismantle the Pheu Thai government, pointing to the earlier court dismissal of Pheu Thai’s first prime ministerial pick on a minor technicality. Others argue that the collapse was triggered by Thaksin’s own refusal to stay on the political sidelines, and his insistence on advancing his own policy and business agenda that clashed with conservative interests.

Regardless of the cause, decades of conflict have left irreconcilable mistrust between Thaksin and Thailand’s conservative power brokers. Even if Thaksin still seeks a return to prominent public office, institutional barriers will almost certainly block any such path. For 25 years, Thai politics was defined by the battle over Thaksin’s legacy and influence. Political analysts broadly agree that the Thaksin era is now all but certainly over.

In one of the most shocking political upsets in modern Indian electoral history, Tamil actor-turned-politician Chandrasekhar Joseph Vijay — universally known by his fan nickname Thalapathy (Commander) Vijay — has led his newly formed political party Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) to become the single-largest faction in Tamil Nadu’s 234-seat state assembly, defying every pre-election prediction and upending the southern state’s decades-old political order.

The stunning outcome was foreshadowed by one underdog race that encapsulated TVK’s entire electoral surprise. When 42-year-old meat shop owner Madhar Badhurudeen, a first-time TVK candidate, filed to run in the Madurai Central constituency — a Hindu-majority seat anchored by the iconic Meenakshi Amman temple — no political observer gave him a shot at victory. A Muslim candidate from a non-political, working-class background, Badhurudeen ran a low-key grassroots campaign with no high-profile celebrity rallies, no visits from party leader Vijay himself, and none of the glitzy, high-decibel campaign events that defined his rivals’ bids.

His opponents were political heavyweights: the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) fielded sitting state minister and senior party leader Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, while the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) — the two entrenched regional parties that have dominated Tamil Nadu politics for decades — tapped well-known actor-filmmaker Sundar C. Both opponents held massive, star-studded processions and drew thousands to public rallies, leaving Badhurudeen’s quiet door-to-door outreach invisible to most traditional political analysts. Yet when results were announced last week, Badhurudeen defeated both rivals by a comfortable margin of more than 19,000 votes.

“My only strength was our leader Vijay and the party’s electoral symbol, the whistle,” Badhurudeen told reporters after his win. “I campaigned on our leader’s pledge of a corruption-free government, and that was enough.”

Badhurudeen’s upset was far from an isolated anomaly. Across the state, 108 TVK candidates — the vast majority of them political newcomers — won their seats, leaving the party just 10 seats short of a full majority. After days of post-election negotiations to secure a governing mandate, Vijay was sworn in as Tamil Nadu’s chief minister on Sunday, closing out a political journey that began just two years ago when he launched TVK after decades as one of Tamil cinema’s biggest box office draws.

The question on every political observer’s mind after the upset is simple: how did a first-time political party, led by a celebrity who campaigned in person for less than three weeks total, pull off such a decisive victory against two well-established political machines?

Vijay’s campaign faced major disruptions long before election day: he paused all campaigning for more than two months after a fatal crowd crush at one of his September 2024 rallies killed dozens of attendees, and dozens more scheduled public events were canceled over what the party cited as logistical constraints and time shortages. The answer, experts say, lies not in traditional ground campaigning, but in a revolutionary digital strategy that rewrote the rules of Indian electoral politics.

“This was almost certainly the first election in India won almost entirely through social media,” explained Anup Chandrasekharan, a Bangalore-based independent media strategist. “Vijay’s supporters didn’t just use digital platforms — they ushered in a full digital revolution in Indian campaigning.”

Unlike traditional Indian election campaigns, which rely on massive ground rallies, door-to-door canvassing, printed banners and endless offline outreach, TVK turned a pre-existing network of 85,000 Vijay fan clubs — built over the actor’s 30-year film career — into a coordinated, 24/7 online campaign army. When Vijay launched his party in 2024, this massive grassroots fan network seamlessly transitioned into an organized political operation focused on digital outreach.

Vijay himself broke with traditional political norms: he gave no national media interviews, held no press conferences, and delivered far shorter public speeches than rival party leaders. Instead, he communicated directly with supporters through social platforms, and every public appearance was quickly repackaged into bite-sized, shareable content by the party’s well-funded IT wing and thousands of volunteer supporters. Clips of his speeches, edited selfie videos, and campaign messaging were cut into Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, then shared across hundreds of thousands of WhatsApp groups and social feeds, reaching millions of voters without a single expensive ground rally.

One edited selfie video of Vijay from a Madurai party conference amassed nearly 90 million views in just 24 hours, a level of organic reach no traditional campaign ad could match. For years, Vijay built his film brand portraying a crusader against corruption, injustice and inequality, championing the rights of underprivileged and marginalized communities — a narrative that translated seamlessly to his political campaign, resonating with voters hungry for change after decades of rule by the two established Dravidian parties.

The strategy proved particularly effective with young Gen Z voters and women, who turned out in large numbers to back TVK and its anti-corruption platform. Unlike many new political entrants in India, TVK’s victory came without widespread allegations of voter intimidation or financial graft, a rare feat in a political landscape long dominated by money, caste and religious identity politics.

Still, experts caution that the digital-first model that delivered electoral success will not be enough to govern effectively. “This model worked because Vijay is a new entrant with no political baggage,” Chandrasekharan noted. “Now that he is in power, he has to deliver results, and he needs to strengthen his on-the-ground party structure — you can’t govern solely from the digital world.”

Critics have also raised questions about Vijay’s lack of formal administrative and political experience as he takes on the role of chief minister. But TVK leaders reject those concerns, pointing to the 1967 election that first brought the DMK to power in Tamil Nadu, when the party was also a new, untested political force.

“What kind of experience did DMK have when they took power in 1967?” Badhurudeen said. “Our goal is to deliver a clean, transparent administration, and our leader is exactly the person to do that.”

There is no question that Vijay has made history: he took on two of India’s most entrenched regional political machines and single-handedly upended the state’s political order, thanks to a revolutionary digital campaign strategy that will likely reshape how Indian elections are fought in years to come. But as post-inauguration celebrations wind down, the reality of governing is setting in. For Thalapathy Vijay and his army of digital campaigners, the real test of their political project is only just beginning.

Allegations that Israel established a covert military base inside Iraqi territory during its recent conflict with Iran have triggered a political firestorm in Baghdad, prompting Iraq’s parliament to launch a formal investigation and summon the country’s defence and interior ministers for questioning.

According to reporting from The New Arab, the parliamentary probe will not be limited to cabinet-level security leaders. Senior national security figures will also be called to testify as lawmakers work to unpack the veracity of multiple independent claims about the hidden outpost, which was reportedly built in Iraq’s western desert.

The first public claim of the base emerged over the weekend from The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Israeli special forces constructed the covert installation in the weeks preceding the outbreak of the Iran-Israel conflict in February. The site, the outlet stated, was purpose-built to support Israeli air operations targeting Iran. When Iraqi military units stumbled on the location nearly two months after construction, the outlet added, Israeli forces launched an attack on the approaching Iraqi contingent.

Israeli outlet Maariv followed with additional reporting the next day, confirming that the forward outpost was designed to serve a critical contingency role: hosting Israeli commando and search-and-rescue teams on standby to extract downed Israeli aircrew from Iranian territory if needed.

Independent open-source intelligence group Faytuks Network has corroborated these claims with satellite imagery captured in March, which shows a temporary makeshift airstrip carved into a dried lakebed in Iraq’s western Najaf desert. The imagery clearly shows fixed-wing aircraft and prefabricated temporary structures at the site, according to the group’s analysis, which was publicly posted to social media on May 10, 2026.

This evidence aligns with on-the-ground reports from early March, when Iraqi state media confirmed that one Iraqi soldier was killed in armed clashes with an unidentified foreign force in the desert region between the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Iraqi forces had been dispatched to the area that day to investigate unconfirmed reports of a military airdrop carried out by multiple unidentified helicopters.

In comments to The New Arab, a senior parliamentary official confirmed that Iraqi national security authorities initially assumed the unknown force operating in the desert was part of the U.S.-led international counter-ISIS coalition, and did not immediately move to expel or confront the group. Multiple anonymous security sources have told Arab media outlets that the site is no longer occupied by Israeli personnel as of the latest reports.

The revelations have sparked widespread public and political anger across Iraq, with growing cross-party demands for the Iraqi government to deliver a full public explanation and hold accountable any actors responsible for violating Iraqi sovereignty. Prominent Iraqi MP Raed al-Maliki has publicly leveled blame at the United States, accusing Washington of enabling the Israeli operation by granting Israel free access to Iraqi airspace during the conflict and ordering Iraqi air defense radar systems to be shut down.

“The United States handed Iraqi airspace to the entity during the war and ordered radar systems to be shut down. Now it has become clear that Iraqi territory was also used to establish a secret intelligence centre or base for the Zionist entity,” al-Maliki said in a public statement.

As of press time, the federal Iraqi government has not issued any official public comment on the allegations or the impending parliamentary investigation.