In Thailand’s rural heartland, former Thaksin loyalists count cost of nation’s ‘lost decades’

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Thailands former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (centre) being escorted into a police van outside the Supreme Court in Bangkok on Sept 9.

PHOTO: AFP

KHON KAEN/UDON THANI – For the past two decades, Thailand’s north-east rural heartland has been an electoral stronghold for Thaksin Shinawatra, delivering staunch support for the billionaire businessman’s brand of populist politics – even in his absence.

Hundreds of so-called “red-shirt” villages in rice-growing regions across provinces such as Khon Kaen and Udon Thani helped form the base of the pro-Thaksin political movement, with many of the residents travelling to the capital Bangkok to join mass protests in the wake of Thaksin’s removal as prime minister in a 2006 military coup.

But such has been the sharp decline in Thaksin’s political fortunes – the 76-year-old was on Sept 9 ordered to serve one year in jail, less than two weeks after his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra was removed as prime minister – that he risks being abandoned by even his most ardent of voter bases.

“I’m reluctant to vote for Pheu Thai again,” said Mr Surat Kaephuang, a 62-year-old shopkeeper in Khon Kaen, referring to the Shinawatras’ political party.

“I see Thaksin as