Thaksin Shinawatra

Thaksin Shinawatra (Thai: ทักษิณ ชินวัตร, RTGS: Thaksin Chinnawat; pronounced [tʰáksǐn tɕʰinnawát] ( listen); Chinese: 丘達新; born 26 July 1949) is a Thai billionaire politician and businessman who was Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006, when he was deposed in a military coup.

In 2008, Thaksin was found guilty in a Thai court of corruption and sentenced in absentia to two years imprisonment. As of today, he has not served the sentence and remains a fugitive. Thaksin briefly owned Manchester City Football Club from 2007 to 2008. Following a prolonged series of violent political protests in Bangkok from March to May 2010, in which 88 people died, Thai court issued a warrant for the arrest of Thaksin on terrorism charges.

Thaksin entered politics in 1994 under Phalang Dharma Party, left the party with many of its MPs in 1996, in effect eviscerating it, and founded the populist Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party in 1998. After a historic election victory in 2001, he became prime minister, the country's first to serve a full term.[3] Thaksin introduced a range of partly effective policies to alleviate rural poverty; highly popular, they helped reduce poverty by half in four years.[4][5] He launched the country's first universal healthcare program,[6] the 30-baht scheme, as well as a severely human-rights violating but also highly popular drug suppression campaign.[7] After his purchases of MPs from other political parties, most notably the New Aspiration Party founded by Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, his Thai Rak Thai party won an unprecedented landslide in the 2005 general election, which had the highest voter turnout in Thai history.


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