Awkward father-daughter dance leaves Thailand with unclear road ahead

BANGKOK — Few father-daughter dances may be more awkward in modern political history than the one choreographed in Bangkok.

Thailand’s new prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 38, is the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, 74, a coup-toppled, convicted former international fugitive and prime minister. Many suspect he seeks to manipulate her populist, capitalist-friendly coalition government.

“I insist he is not trying to dominate,” the new prime minister told reporters after parliament elected her on Aug. 16, after another period of upheaval for Thailand’s stressed democracy. “I can think for myself.”

If the nine-judge Constitutional Court proves that Mr. Thaksin is influencing, guiding or dominating his daughter or their Pheu Thai (For Thais) Party, he could be imprisoned, the party dissolved, and her government ended.

The young, untested prime minister, whose aunt Yingluck Shinawatra had her star-crossed term as prime minister a decade ago, is finding her famous name to be both a help and a hindrance as she tries to govern after the stunning collapse of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s coalition government.

“Her weakness is being Thaksin’s daughter,” Rangsit University political science lecturer Wanwichit Boonprong said in an interview. Mr. Thaksin “has many political enemies.”

Ms. Paetongtarn has little political experience outside of witnessing her father’s and aunt’s ugly, treacherous fate.

After a 2006 military-backed coup, Mr. Thaksin plunged into self-exile for 17 years. He dodged prison until last year when he voluntarily returned, spent several months in a Bangkok hospital and was released.

The political dynasty sustained dynastic collapse again under Yingluck Shinawatra, whose three-year term in office was abruptly halted by a 2014 putsch, again with backing from the military. She remains a fugitive abroad, avoiding a five-year prison sentence by the Supreme Court for financial mismanagement during her administration.

The next target?

After two decades of political backstabbing among the military and elected politicians, Ms. Paetongtarn, a mother of two, has been warned she is an easy target and may become the next Shinawatra to be prosecuted and pushed out of office.

The coups against her father and aunt “weigh heavily on her shoulders, serving as both a reminder and a warning of the political perils ahead,” a Bangkok Post editorial said. “No one wishes to see her share the unfortunate fate that befell” her relatives, it said.

The government’s first policy statements last month made clear that reviving the sluggish Thai economy was a priority. Heavily dependent on tourism, Thailand’s economy never fully recovered from the global COVID-19 shutdown. Growth in the first quarter of the year was a modest 1.7%, far below the pace of other countries in the region.

Thailand’s often murky legal system also presents pitfalls.

“Paetongtarn Shinawatra is also vulnerable as there is a pending case against her over the purchase of [Buddhist] monastic land by the Alpine Golf Club, a firm in which she is a shareholder,” said Chairith Yonpiam, a Bangkok Post assistant news editor.

Ms. Paetongtarn’s enemies are seeking any evidence to use against her and the Shinawatra-dominated Pheu Thai Party (PTP) for alleged violations of the powerful Constitutional Court, which has a record of liquidating offending political parties and banishing even popular politicians.

The Thai Senate, packed by design with conservative military supporters, could be the source of that destabilization.

Senators launched a petition that resulted in the Constitutional Court’s ouster of Mr. Srettha on Aug. 14 for “unethical” political behavior. Mr. Srettha had appointed to his Cabinet a lawyer who had served time in prison in a bribery case.

Mr. Srettha’s downfall enabled Ms. Paetongtarn to replace him and continue as prime minister leading the PTP for its remaining three-year tenure after a coalition reshuffle.

Balancing act

Ms. Paetongtarn is expected to follow her father’s past policies of maintaining close and balanced relations with both Washington and Beijing, allowing the U.S. to provide the bulk of the military assistance and encouraging China to invest and develop infrastructure in Thailand.

Balancing the domestic forces pressing down on her may prove the biggest challenge. Conservatives linked to the military and the Thai monarchy retain significant power even though modernizing reformist parties scored big in last year’s national elections. The elections were held after a decade of power for a government effectively run by a military junta that took power in a coup.

“Whoever is in the Thai government must be able to work with the Thai armed forces, which still maintain close relationships with its U.S. counterpart,” former Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said in an interview.

“Thailand has become less important in the eyes of the U.S. side compared with Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and even Indonesia. The new Thai government has to review and reposition itself first,” Mr. Kasit said.

During Mr. Thaksin’s 2001-2006 term as prime minister, President Bush welcomed him to the White House. Bangkok assisted Washington in the post-9/11 global war on terrorist groups, and the U.S. and Thailand became non-NATO treaty allies.

Thailand’s close and comprehensive relations with China “were initiated by Mr. Thaksin himself some 23 years ago and continued apace even when he and his nominees were out of power,” Bangkok-based Benjamin Zawacki, author of “Thailand: Shifting Ground Between the U.S. and a Rising China,” said in an interview.

The primary question is how much influence the mercurial father will have on the untested daughter.

“On the surface, Mr. Thaksin still dominates Thai politics nearly 20 years after he was deposed by a military coup and exiled for most of that period,” wrote columnist and Chulalongkorn University political science professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak.

“This time, his political power and influence are being exercised through his daughter, Ms. Paetongtarn.

“The irony for her now is that her father has struck an alliance with the pro-military and establishment forces who booted him out, as well as her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra, in the 2006 and 2014 military takeovers,” Mr. Thitinan added.

Thaksin Shinawatra “reconsolidated his power in the blink of an eye,” said Mr. Chairith, the editor. “Now we are again seeing old enemies bury the hatchet and vie for political cake.”

Coalition challenges

In addition to the family dynamics, Ms. Paetongtarn oversees a coalition government consisting of 10 political parties and one faction, which holds 312 seats in the parliament’s 490-seat House of Representatives.

Wheeling and dealing with Thailand’s opaque politics will be a steep learning curve for Ms. Paetongtarn, whose master’s degree from Surrey University in England was in international hotel management.

She was little known when she burst onto the political scene last year after growing up in her father’s shadow.

“I think she is trying to create an image of herself to be a representative of the new generation, modern, understanding technology and soft power policies in order to make Thailand as successful as South Korea [by] exporting cultural products,” Mr. Wanwichit said.

“Paetongtarn’s preferences mirror her father’s preferences,” Paul Chambers, a Thai political specialist at Naresuan University, said in an interview. “Thaksin appears everywhere that she goes. Thaksin is the major funder of the Pheu Thai Party. Only Thaksin loyalists have received top posts in Pheu Thai cabinets.”

Mr. Kasit, the former foreign minister who clashed while in office with the first Shinawatra government, noted that “nothing is known about her ideology or idealism or ideas. … She depends on her support team and her father.”