Forceful Thai Leader Challenged Amid Achievements

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra makes no secret of the place in history he wants. It is to succeed Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad and Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew as the voice of Southeast Asia and make Thailand the symbol of the region’s robust economic revival.

To push his agenda, he has spent heavily to create income and jobs, and he has seen Thailand achieve one of Asia’s fastest economic expansions. He has introduced virtually free healthcare, encouraged easy consumer credit and provided the nation’s 70,000 villages with a system of low-interest loans. Viewed as a champion of the poor, the 54-year-old telecommunications billionaire has enjoyed popularity ratings above 70% throughout much of his three-plus years in office.

But last month, Thaksin’s popularity dropped to 59% amid an array of challenges. An insurgency in the Muslim-dominated south has turned violent over the last few months, and took a particularly bloody turn last week when more than 100 separatists were slain in a clash with Thai security forces. A government crackdown on drugs has left 2,500 people dead and raised questions about human rights. Trade union protests over his attempt to privatize the state electricity enterprise are challenging his plans for free-market reforms. Many have expressed concern about corruption and nepotism, Thaksin’s authoritarian style and his commitment to democracy.

Still, political analysts believe, Thaksin is likely to become the first elected prime minister in Thai history to complete a full four-year term without being unseated by a coup or a no-confidence vote in parliament. Elections are scheduled next year. Thaksin, a former policeman, dismisses criticism of his iron-handed governance. “Decisiveness isn’t dictatorship,” he says.

“Thaksin came into office at the end of the Asian economic crisis, when there was still a lot of anti-IMF [International Monetary Fund] sentiment,” said Somchai Pakapaswiwat, a political scientist at Thammasat University. “He’s good at appealing to Thais’ nationalistic pride. He has interjected a new dimension in Thai politics by marketing policy instead of personality.”

Many of those policies are controversial. His war on drugs resulted in complaints from human rights groups that police were turned loose to kill dealers and users at will. Thaksin defended his cops and said the high death rate was the result of drug lords killing one another. He pointed out that drug use in Thailand had dropped over the last year.

When the State Department joined critics of the crackdown in its annual human rights report, Thaksin called the United States a “useless friend,” implying perhaps that Washington should be more grateful for his close cooperation in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism and for dispatching 450 troops to Iraq. (His generals say the troops will be withdrawn if they are attacked.)

The biggest challenge Thaksin faces, Western diplomats said, is in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, where the prime minister has sent 3,000 troops, declared martial law and allocated more than $300 million for security measures and regional development projects. Continued unrest there could threaten Thailand’s $10-billion tourist industry.

An Islamic insurgency has simmered since the 1960s in the south, where the Muslim minority complains that the government discriminates in favor of the Buddhist majority. Tensions eased when Thailand’s 1997 Constitution guaranteed religious freedom. In 2002, Thaksin declared that the insurgency had ended and abolished the joint command of soldiers and police designed to deal with it.

In January, unknown assailants in Narathiwat torched 20 schools and assaulted an army camp, killing four soldiers and stealing 300 weapons. Since then, about 100 people -- mostly policemen, Buddhist monks, teachers and government officials -- have been slain. Thaksin has responded by replacing his defense and interior ministers and sacking his southern army commander and police chief.

Thai intelligence officers are unsure if the insurgents represent a homegrown separatist movement or an international terrorist network. They say it appears some of them received military training from Islamists in Indonesia, and they fear there may be a link to Jemaah Islamiah, the group blamed for the attack on a Bali, Indonesia, nightclub in 2002 that killed more than 200 people.

Last August, Thai counter-terrorism agents, working with the CIA, captured Jemaah Islamiah’s operational chief, Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, near Bangkok. Thaksin said Hambali’s mission was to plan an attack on an international economic summit here last October and to simultaneously bomb the U.S. Embassy.

Terrorists struck again March 27, bombing a nightclub in Sungai Kolok on the Malaysian border and injuring 28 people. A few days after that 10 men raided a quarry in Yala province and escaped with large amounts of explosives.

Political analysts say a great deal is at stake in the southern provinces for both Thaksin and Thailand. “If Thaksin can calm the region, he’ll win the election hands down next year,” a Western diplomat said. “But if the situation worsens, Thailand could pay a big price in terms of the economy, foreign investment and tourism.”

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Rise to power

Government: Thaksin Shinawatra became prime minister in 2001 after his Thais Love Thais party swept the general elections. Thaksin served twice as deputy prime minister in the 1990s.

* Education: He earned a master’s degree in criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University and a doctorate in criminology from Sam Houston State University in Texas.

* Business: Thaksin is a former police officer who parlayed a bank loan into a telecommunications conglomerate. He is one of Thailand’s richest men.

* Personal: Thaksin, 54, is the grandson of a teak and rice trader. He and his wife, Potjaman, have three children.