It could have happened in August 2001, but Thailand has taken nearly two wasted decades to see the back of Thaksin Shinawatra.
Back then, Thaksin was a freshly elected, flamboyant telecommunications tycoon with a firm democratic mandate who his current opponents and adversaries fell for. In view of his recent political misfortune, Thaksin is now less politically viable than ever. Thailand's challenge will be to navigate past Thaksin, but not into the repressive embrace of his conservative opponents.
In January 2001, Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party was streets ahead of the rest and nearly garnered an overall majority in the Lower House. At the same time, Thaksin ran afoul of transparency and accountability rules in the reform-oriented 1997 constitution. In an eight-to-seven verdict, Constitutional Court judges ruled Thaksin had not dishonestly placed billions of baht under the names of his household staff to elude scrutiny.
Cleared by the Constitutional Court, Thaksin went on to consolidate his poll win by taking over smaller political parties, politicised and co-opted accountability-promoting agencies and ruled with an iron fist while armed with an electoral mandate. His party machine became a juggernaut, despite suffering judicial dissolutions along the way. In the February 2005 poll, Thaksin's then-incumbent party -- the first to complete a full term -- secured re-election by a landslide and became the first party to form a one-party government.
By August 2005, Thailand's troubles began. Street protests against Thaksin's abuse of power and conflicts of interest took place, fuelled by his hubris. Eventually, he was ousted in the September 2006 coup.
Thailand has been in a holding pattern since, alternately marked by yellow- and red-clad protests. As they had no electoral answer to the Thaksin challenge, his opponents from established centres of authority -- from senior judges and army generals to a clutch of power brokers -- were forced to dislodge his forces with a judicial manoeuvre in December 2008 and yet another military coup in May 2014.
Each time, Thaksin came back. But this last election may be different. The Thaksin-aligned Pheu Thai Party won around 137 Lower House seats, the largest winning party, but with the fewest seats since it was formed in 1998 under Thai Rak Thai. But the Pheu Thai Party still more or less held its ground in northern and northeastern constituencies because it only fielded 250 out of the 350 seats contested.
The key to how Pheu Thai fared was the dissolution of its sister party, Thai Raksa Chart, which was set up to handle and capitalise on new constitutional provisions against big parties. Here is where Thaksin miscalculated twice, reminiscent of his earlier misadventure under the government of his sister Yingluck Shinawatra. The Yingluck government passed an "amnesty" bill that would have cleared political wrongdoings dating back a decade to when the Thai crisis began, including those of Thaksin. The amnesty gambit re-ignited the anti-Thaksin movement that ultimately brought about Yingluck's demise.
With Thai Raksa Chart, which was seen being more closely linked to Thaksin than Pheu Thai, two more gambits came into play. The first was the nomination on Feb 8 of Princess Ubolratana as candidate for prime minister. The same day, His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn's royal command effectively cancelled the nomination for being unconstitutional. That episode galvanised anti-Thaksin elements into renewed vigilance and opposition.
The second gambit was to play the royal card again with Princess Ubolratana's appearance at the wedding of Thaksin's youngest daughter in Hong Kong less than two days before polls opened. This manoeuvre immediately coincided with a royal statement invoking the late King Bhumibol's remarks in 1969 about the need to put "good people" in office. The "good people" discourse in Thai politics is not meant to be the Thaksin kind of people.
The "good people" statement was announced on national television less than 12 hours before election time and repeated just minutes before the voting began. Those who saw Thaksin as a threat had their worst fears confirmed by Thaksin's ambition and manipulation to return home and prevail at any cost. They decided to close ranks and rally behind the junta leader and incumbent Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha and the Palang Pracharath Party that had nominated him for prime minister.
Keeping the Thaksin menace at bay can only be done by Gen Prayut, not the Democrat Party, which stood against Thaksin throughout. This explains Palang Pracharath's late surge to win the largest number of votes just ahead of Pheu Thai, although the latter won more MP seats. On the flip side, the Democrat Party fared poorly partly because of the news and photos from Hong Kong.
Having backfired, these two gambits were not the end of Thaksin's own troubles. He has recently been stripped of his royal decorations from time served and roles played in public service. The withdrawal of royal decorations is tantamount to being disowned, a pariah or persona non grata.
To be sure, Thaksin's political activities will continue. But they will likely be seen differently and be given less popular support and have decreasing traction. The Pheu Thai Party, like the Democrat Party, may also undergo an internal realignment in view of Thaksin's political ostracism. Thaksin's core party supporters with a progressive bent may think anew.
Post-election Thai politics remains murky but there is a chance to move on, at least on the Thaksin front.
Those who miss Thaksin the most may well be his opponents. Without him, they will not have their usual go-to bogeyman. Thailand's electorate, in turn, has to find ways to move beyond both sides.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, PhD, teaches at the Faculty of Political Science and directs the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.