A former prime minister returns

Thailand

Thaksin comes home

A former prime minister returns

IT HAS been Thaksinism in all but the presence of the man himself. Since taking office in early February, Thailand’s new government has pursued policies almost identical to those of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted by a 2006 military coup. On Thursday February 28th the missing ingredient arrived, as Mr Thaksin flew in to a rapturous reception at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, ending his exile. After kissing the tarmac, he was taken to the Supreme Court and granted bail on corruption charges. After the coup he was banned for five years from politics, which, to widespread scepticism, he anyway claims to have given up. But he remains popular, and his loyalists in the People’s Power Party (PPP) romped home at the ballot box last December.

Samak Sundaravej, the prime minister and self-confessed “proxy” for Mr Thaksin, has been following his mentor’s script: promising an expansion of rural micro-credit and small-business loans, a debt freeze for farmers, and big spending on infrastructure and public housing. He plans to revive Mr Thaksin’s popular but controversial crackdown on drug dealers, which saw 2,500 people killed in 2003-04. And he has echoed his confrontational approach to a simmering insurgency in the Muslim-majority south, bordering Malaysia. Mr Samak has brushed aside questions about the death of 78 Muslim demonstrators in police custody in 2004.

A PPP-led government has taken office despite fears that the army or judiciary might thwart the popular will. However, the worries revived this week when the Election Commission found Yongyuth Tiyapairat, the speaker of the lower house of Parliament, guilty of vote-buying. If the courts find he was acting on behalf of the PPP, it risks disbandment.

As political tensions mount in Bangkok, the new government is neglecting one of Thailand’s biggest problems: the separatist insurgency in the south. More than 2,800 people have died since January 2004, mostly civilians slain by shadowy gunmen or caught in bombings. Terrified Buddhists have fled insurgent zones or joined trigger-happy militias. Local Muslims who side with security forces become marked men. Militants sometimes behead victims and set bodies ablaze. Public schools, seen as symbols of Bangkok’s rule, suffer repeated arson attacks and drive-by shootings of teachers. Southern Thailand is now among the most lethal conflicts in South-East Asia.

Since taking office Mr Samak has welcomed a proposal to disarm civilians and some soldiers and police in the south, but slapped down a minister who talked of giving the region autonomy. Politically, promising to solve a messy conflict with deep roots and few votes is a risky move. But the cost of inaction could be high. Most analysts believe that despite the avowed Islamism of the insurgents this is primarily an ethnic-separatist fight of Malays against Thais, rather than part of any international jihad. But letting such groups run wild is hardly a recipe for regional stability.

Naturally, the Thai army reckons it can lick the militants. Last year it launched its own “surge” in response to a spike in roadside bombings, pouring more soldiers into the south and resorting to mass arrests under emergency laws introduced by Mr Thaksin in 2005. Thousands of Muslim suspects were sent to army re-education camps. Yet the presence of more than 30,000 soldiers and police, as well as paramilitary units, has not halted the violence. In January the number of killings rose sharply to 55. Innocents wrongly detained at army camps, where human-rights groups say torture is rife, are eventually released, presumably ripe for recruitment to the separatist cause.