The King of Thailand has reduced Thaksin Shinawatra’s eight-year prison term to one year.
After 15 years of self-imposed exile, Thaksin returned home last month and was instantly imprisoned. He was then transferred to a state hospital’s opulent wing after claiming to have heart issues.
Thaksin has previously claimed that the sentences that were still pending on allegations of corruption and abuse of authority were motivated by politics. When a military coup overthrew Thaksin, one of Thailand’s most well-known and divisive figures, he fled the country two years later to avoid serving time in prison.
His return last month was thought to be part of a larger political arrangement. And it was one that was intended to bring his well-liked Pheu Thai party and its former rivals together in a compromise administration.
That’s what it did. After he arrived, Srettha Thavisin was named the new prime minister by a new coalition government under Pheu Thai’s leadership. Former military foes of Thaksin who overthrew his party in a coup in 2014 are part of the coalition.
King Vajiralongkorn swiftly granted Thaksin’s request for a pardon, cutting the eight-year term he was serving to only one. It is evident that Thaksin had hoped for mercy as part of that agreement. He will probably remain in the hospital.
His age and “illness” were mentioned in the Royal Gazette on Friday in response to his request for a royal pardon. Thaksin “has done good for the country and people and is loyal to the monarchy,” it continued.
But Thaksin must have hoped that, rather than only having his sentence reduced, it would be reversed.
His party will struggle to manage an unwieldy alliance in which it possesses only around half the legislative seats due to his continuing imprisonment. The dynamic Move Forward party, which defeated Pheu Thai to win the previous general election, also opposes it vigorously.
However, after agreeing to form a coalition with Pheu Thai, Move Forward was unable to create the government. Together, the two parties failed to win over the 250 members of the unelected senate, who are permitted to cast their votes alongside the 500 elected MPs for the Thai prime minister.
By returning and accepting his sentence, Thaksin has ended the 20-year-old feud with conservative royalists that had been raging in the country.
