Thailand’s ex-PM Yingluck faces trial and political ruin

Thailand’s first female prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra faces court Tuesday at the start of a negligence trial which could see her jailed for a decade and deliver a hammer blow to the political dominance of her family. It is the latest legal move against Yingluck - sister of fugitive billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra - whose administration was toppled in a military coup nearly a year ago. She is accused of criminal negligence over a populist but economically disastrous rice subsidy scheme, which paid farmers in the rural Shinawatra heartland twice the market rate for their crops.

This trial is being brought in order to permanently remove Yingluck from the political scene.

Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs in Chiang Mai

Yingluck is not accused of corruption but of failing to prevent alleged graft within the programme, which cost billions of dollars and galvanised the protests that eventually felled her elected government leading to last May’s coup. Thailand’s military-appointed parliament impeached Yingluck in January over the scheme, a move which banned her from politics for five years. ut the criminal case could see her jailed for up to a decade, an outcome that could ruin any chance of an imminent political comeback if and when the military eventually hand back power. Analysts say the trial is the latest move by Thailand’s military rulers to neuter the Shinawatra clan since they seized power.

The criminal and other charges against her will be bogged down in red tape as long as she and other forces loyal to her brother Thaksin behave and play nice. If they agitate and mobilise against the coup, then the noose will tighten on her.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a Thai politics expert at Chulalongkorn University

Politics Thailand