All About Thailand's Powerful Shinawatras and the New Threats the Clan Faces

The Shinawatra clan that has dominated Thailand’s politics for the past two decades made a return to power in August — and it didn’t take long for opponents to emerge with moves to oust it from government. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra runs an uneasy coalition that is pressing ahead with cash stimulus worth billions of dollars to bolster the economy, which risks adding to the country’s pile of debt. The prime minister, her billionaire father Thaksin Shinawatra who used be Thailand’s premier, and their family-backed political party have so-far fended off one complaint filed in court. But their opponents show no signs of backing down and the Election Commission has been probing Thaksin’s alleged influence over the ruling party. Investor uncertainty lingers as the drama unfolds in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, where democracy has been on shaky ground and the royalist establishment has engineered long stretches of military-backed rule.

The Shinawatras have been the driving force behind parties that won most Thai general elections since 2001, only to be booted out several times by the royalist establishment that viewed them as a threat. Descendants of a Chinese immigrant who married a Thai woman in the late 19th century, the Shinawatras are Thailand’s most prominent political dynasty, with three of its members occupying the country’s top political office at different times in the last 23 years. Thaksin has been a polarizing but enduring figure in politics since he first became prime minister in 2001. A landslide victory for his Thai Rak Thai Party in 2005 won him a second term in office, which ended abruptly a year later in a military coup. Thaksin left Thailand in 2008 to avoid corruption charges that he said were politically motivated. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra faced a similar fate after her Pheu Thai party won an election in 2011 and she became Thailand’s first female prime minister. Yingluck was ousted by judicial order in 2014, and weeks later her government was toppled in yet another coup.