Do we like Thaksin Shinawatra?
Our score: 3 out of 10. Mixed on both tests: a drug war Human Rights Watch tied to about 2,275 apparent extrajudicial killings and a corruption conviction, against a healthcare scheme many rural Thais credit him for.
Thaksin is the telecom tycoon who became Thailand's prime minister, winning general elections in 2001 and 2005. A military coup threw him out in 2006, a court convicted him over a land deal in 2007, and he lived in self-imposed exile from 2008 until he came home in 2023. Few Thai politicians have split a country as cleanly down the middle.
Separately, he was charged in 2024 under Thailand's royal insult law over a 2015 interview with a South Korean newspaper. A Bangkok court dismissed it in August 2025 for insufficient evidence, and analysts say the law is often used against political opponents. The Attorney General has since decided to appeal the acquittal, so that one isn't over.
Now the harm check, and it's the heavy part. Human Rights Watch reported that around 2,275 suspected drug offenders were shot dead between February and May 2003 in apparent extrajudicial executions, and said his approach merited “disgust and condemnation, not forgiveness”. Plenty of villagers backed the crackdown at the time, and polls reportedly showed most Thais agreed. On LGBTQ+ people, women and the climate, I didn't find his own words in anything I read in full, so that part of the record is thin.
Tak Bai is the other shadow. In October 2004 security forces killed seven people at a protest in Narathiwat, and 78 more suffocated after being stacked in army trucks, while he was prime minister. In February 2025 he apologised for any actions that may have made people “feel uneasy”; a rights activist said it was his first apology and that a sincere one would mean meeting the families.
Where he is now: Thaksin was released on parole in May 2026 to cheering supporters, saying he was “relieved”. He joked about the stint with “I went to hibernate. I can't remember anything now.” AFP reports his influence has waned after his jailing and his Pheu Thai party's worst election result on record.
So would we back him? Not wholeheartedly. Cheap healthcare and a late apology count for something, but a drug war with that body count, a corruption conviction and a hospital stay the Supreme Court said was to avoid jail are a lot to wave off. Mate, he's a complicated one, and the gaps in our reading on LGBTQ+ and climate keep this at a 3.