{"id":57748,"date":"2023-08-22T21:49:58","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T12:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/aug\/22\/thaksin-represents-the-grassroots-people-thailands-divisive-former-leader-returns"},"modified":"2023-08-22T21:49:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T12:49:58","slug":"thaksin-represents-the-grassroots-people-thailands-divisive-former-leader-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=57748","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Thaksin represents the grassroots people\u2019: Thailand\u2019s divisive former leader returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Older rural voters swept him to power and many still support him despite his arrest on arrival<\/p>\n<p>Thaksin Shinawatra hasn\u2019t held political office since he was ousted in 2006, and, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/aug\/22\/thaksin-shinawatra-anger-and-anticipation-in-thailand-as-exiled-former-pm-expected-to-return\">until Tuesday<\/a>, he had not set foot in Thailand in more than 15 years. But despite this, he has remained one of the country\u2019s most influential and polarising politicians.<\/p>\n<p>Born in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, Thaksin became a police officer before developing a fortune as a telecoms tycoon. Aged 48, he formed the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2001\/mar\/05\/thailand\">swept to power in 2001<\/a> with a landslide election victory.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/aug\/22\/thaksin-represents-the-grassroots-people-thailands-divisive-former-leader-returns\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Older rural voters swept him to power and many still support him despite his arrest on arrivalThaksin Shinawatra hasn\u2019t held political office since he was ousted in 2006, and, until Tuesday, he had not set foot in Thailand in more than 15 years. But de&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":888,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,93,2873],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-thailand","category-thaksin-shinawatra"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/888"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57749,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57748\/revisions\/57749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}