Thaksin Shinawatra: from phone billionaire to fugitive ex-prime minister

Leader accused by military of corruption but popular with rural poor

Ben Doherty

The Guardian, Friday 26 February 2010

Thaksin Shinawatra, whose appointment as an economic adviser to Cambodia infuriated the Thai governmenbt. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

via CAAI News Media


Born to a silk-trading family in Chiang Mai, Thaksin Shinawatra began his working life as a policeman. After several failed business ventures, in 1989 he established Shinawatra Datacom, a mobile phone network business that was to become the biggest phone operator in Thailand, and make him a multibillionaire.

He entered politics in 1994, becoming foreign minister that same year. He was elected prime minister in the general election of 2001, and became hugely popular, particularly in the north and north-east of the country, enfranchising the rural poor, and offering them healthcare for 30 baht (60p) and low-cost loans. He won a second election in 2005 but was swept from power in a bloodless coup in 2006 by a military leadership that argued he was corrupt, but was increasingly fearful of his growing popularity and power.

In 2008 he was convicted of a conflict of interest over a land deal involving his wife. He was sentenced to two years' jail, but had fled the country before the verdict was delivered. A fugitive, he now lives in Dubai and serves, to the fury of the Thai government, as an economic adviser to neighbouring Cambodia.

He is best-known in Britain for his short-lived ownership of Manchester City football club.