THAILAND: Yingluck Shinawatra the sister of fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is shaking up the first parliamentary election since a wave of political violence last year

Record ID: 345246

  • Title: THAILAND: Yingluck Shinawatra the sister of fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is shaking up the first parliamentary election since a wave of political violence last year
  • Date: 26th May 2011
  • Summary: UDON THANI PROVINCE, THAILAND (MAY 25, 2011) (REUTERS) PUEA THAI PARTY SUPPORTERS AT RALLY VARIOUS YINGLUCK SHINNAWATRA, SISTER OF FORMER THAI LEADER THAKSIN SHINNAWATRA, ARRIVING AND GREETING HER SUPPORTERS CROWD CHEERING AND CLAPPING VARIOUS OF YINGLUCK ON STAGE YINGLUCK ADDRESSING THE CROWD MORE OF SUPPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Thai) YINGLUCK SHINNAWATRA, SISTER OF TH
  • Embargoed: 10th June 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Thailand, Thailand
  • Country: Thailand
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2WFYCCJRFEFLW6NFFAJ3D06IP
  • Story Text: Yingluck Shinawatra, the 43-year-old businesswoman and sister of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has vaulted swiftly into front runner status in the July 3 vote, tapping support in the rural north and northeast heartland where her brother remains a populist hero five years after he was toppled in a coup.
    After a week of campaigning, she has a surprised sceptics and demonstrated she has Thaksin's star power as she seeks to become Thailand's first female elected leader.
    A political neophyte, she is seen widely as a stand-in for her brother, a 60-year-old ethnic Chinese telecommunications tycoon who transformed Thai politics with landslide election wins before he was felled by corruption charges he says were politically motivated.
    Yingluck has promised to revive Thaksin's populist policies and raise living standards, vowing to pursue reconciliation to end Thailand's bloody five-year political crisis without seeking vengeance for her brother's overthrow.
    Asked by Reuters for details, she said: "The first priority is to solve the economic problem for the people. And then to find way to reach reconciliation and unity, which will need help from consulting every faction on how to bring happiness back to the country," she said.
    It is still early days but poll numbers are moving in her favour. A survey by Suan Dusit University on Sunday (May 22) showed 41 percent of those polled backed Yingluck's Puea Thai party, with the ruling Democrats of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva at nearly 37 percent.
    A Bangkok Poll on Tuesday (May 24) showed 25.8 percent of the capital backed Puea Thai, with only 14.7 percent for the Democrats in their traditional stronghold. Half of those polled were undecided.
    Thaksin has referred to her as his "clone," but while some lament her only qualification to lead the country is her name, she is invigorating supporters.
    At her first appearance in the Thaksin stronghold of the northeast since her nomination on May 16, she was feted by a crowd of thousands, enjoying a rock star reception. Her supporters idolise Thaksin as the first leader to pay attention to the millions living beyond Bangkok's bright lights. They are putting their hopes on her to bring him back.
    As cameras flashed, cheering crowds raised index fingers symbolizing the number one, her party's ballot number, as Yingluck rode in a "tuk-tuk" motorcycle taxi in Udon Thani on Wednesday, smiling as supporters greeted her with red roses.
    Yingluck, her finger raised in a number one gesture, met traders at a market, her voiced drowned out by crowds chanting "number one."
    Later, she addressed a rally of tens of thousands of cheering supporters in the city, many wearing red shirts emblazoned with Thaksin's smiling face -- an image that raises alarm bells for the government, military and royalist elite, who see Thaksin as a terrorist and a crony capitalist.
    Abhisit's Democrat Party has dismissed Yingluck as a political novice serving as a nominee to allow Thaksin to wrestle back power and return from exile, where he lives to avoid a two-year jail term for graft.
    The urbane, Oxford-educated Abhisit has gone on the defensive and has said Puea Thai's call for an amnesty for those guilty of politically related offences is purely for Thaksin's benefit and could trigger a repeat of the protests and violence that killed 91 people in April and May last year.
    But Yingluck's supporters believe the U.S. educated president of property firm SC Asset Corporation could be the one to heal an intractable political malaise characterised by deadly street violence, military crackdowns and governments forced from office.
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