Yingluck has edge as Thai poll nears
Poll position ... a woman takes a picture of herself and Yingluck Shinawatra during her campaign for Thailand's general elections. Photo: Reuters
BANGKOK: Thais usually celebrate Songkran, the country's traditional new year festival, by tossing water and visiting Buddhist temples. Wealthy businesswoman Yingluck Shinawatra marked the April holiday by flying to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to visit her fugitive older brother, Thailand's ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
''He is my brother … so I have to pay respects to him,'' the 43-year-old executive said.
After returning to Bangkok, Yingluck announced she would quit her job as head of SC Asset Corp, a successful property company majority owned by her relatives. She then set out to revive another family enterprise: running Thailand.
Click for more photosThai election
Yingluck Shinawatra, centre, receives garlands from supporters during a stop at a temple. Thailand is gearing up for a July 3 general election, expected to be a close fight between the establishment-backed Democrats of incumbent prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the allies of toppled premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Photo: AFP
Advised by her brother - who was toppled from power in a 2006 military coup - Yingluck is the front runner to become Thailand's next prime minister after elections on July 3.
Widely seen as a referendum on Thaksin, the coming vote is reviving passions that a year ago turned central Bangkok into a war zone when the army moved in to dislodge his so-called red-shirt demonstrators from the city's high-class shopping district.
Although initially dismissed as a novice, Yingluck has run a skillful campaign, and the prospect of her taking the job snatched from her brother has raised the question of whether, as in the past, Thaksin's enemies might try to overturn an election result they don't like through military intervention or judicial manoeuvres.
''I want to see the positive side and I don't want that to happen,'' Yingluck said. She was selected last month to head a list of candidates put forward by the pro-Thaksin opposition party, Pheu Thai, which means ''For Thais'', and has urged foreign countries to follow the election and make sure authorities ''respect the Thai people's decision. If they don't respect [the results], democracy won't come back in Thailand.''
Thailand has had 18 coups, 23 military governments and nine military-dominated governments since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. The military has shown little appetite for a repeat of last year's bloodshed, in which at least 90 people died, and has vowed to stay out of the coming election, but the country's powerful army chief this week made a thinly veiled attack on Pheu Thai by appearing on television and telling people how to vote.
''If you allow a repeat of the same election pattern, then we will always get the same result,'' General Prayut Chan-O-Cha said in an interview aired on two army-run channels.
''I want you to use sound and reasonable judgment to make our country and our monarchy safe and have good people running our nation,'' he told voters, apparently endorsing the Democrat Party, which came to power with army backing.
Last week, Thaksin's opponents launched a legal challenge to try to derail his sister's campaign. They accused her of lying to Thailand's Supreme Court to help her brother retain a portion of his assets. Yingluck's party responded by filing a defamation suit.
In carefully scripted speeches and media interviews, she has mostly stuck to platitudes. A Western diplomat with long experience on Thailand likened her to Sarah Palin, ''but with the sense to keep her mouth shut and avoid gaffes''. She declined to take part in a debate with her main opponent, Thailand's prime minister, the Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva, and spent her time touring the country, wooing voters with her photogenic good looks, soothing tone and expansive appeals to Thailand's poor and business community.
Yingluck's campaign leaflets boast of Thaksin's role: ''Thaksin Thinks, Pheu Thai Does,'' reads a party slogan. Thaksin, in a recent interview with Australian television, described his sister as his ''clone''.
Yingluck said this did not make her Thaksin's puppet but only meant they share ''the same logical thinking … He taught me on the business side. If he says one word, I understand how he thinks.''
Like her billionaire brother, Yingluck is skilled at connecting with Thais at the opposite end of the economic and social scale. She promises credit cards for farmers, debt relief and better healthcare. ''Just because you have money, it doesn't mean you don't understand [poor people].''
She also appeals to business, promising lower corporate taxes and a high-speed rail network.
Kraisak Choonhavan, deputy leader of the Democrat Party, acknowledged that Yingluck was running a good a campaign and had made things ''very difficult'' for his Democrat Party's electoral chances. Her brother, he added, ''is relentless''.
The Washington Post
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/yingluck-has-edge-as-thai-poll-nears-20110617-1g7vt.html#ixzz1PdHL1QJF
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