Sunanda K Datta-Ray: The rush to get rid of Thaksin

WHERE MONEY TALKS

Many Thais admit he would probably have won the next election, with a lower margin.

There's a curious story going round that Singapore may have been inadvertently responsible for the Thai coup. Oh, nothing cloak and dagger: Lee Hsien Loong's impeccable island state wouldn't dream of intervention. But an aspect of Thaksin Shinawatra's sale of his telecommunications giant, Shin Corp, may have raised nationalistic hackles among the military. Perhaps, even in the palace.

As everyone knows, the canny Thaksin sold his company to Singapore's Temasek Holdings for $1.9 billion (US, not Singapore) with not even a baht's tax to pay. One fall-out amidst widespread protests was the lawsuit that an obscure Thai called Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, a former employee of the Auditor-General's office, filed against the revenue department. Ruangkrai bought some shares cheap from his father (like the prime minister's children) and was taxed 20,000 baht. However, when he made an issue of it, citing Thaksin's case, the embarrassed revenue department hastily refunded the money. Then, Ruangkrai had a brainwave "" I suspect some opposition leaders got at him "" and wanted the department to take back the refund, presumably so that he could accuse it of discrimination. This time, the revenue people didn't oblige. Instead, they accused Ruangkrai of trying to make political capital out of a simple transaction.

The department itself is "" or was "" in trouble. The Auditor-General's office suspected it of conniving in Thaksin's tax avoidance. And the Council of State, the kingdom's highest legal advisory body, agreed to the department being investigated. It was already known when the army stepped in that the inquiry's findings could devastate the political fortunes of Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai or TRT (Thais Love Thais) party. Indeed, it could have been dissolved and Thaksin and other leaders barred from holding office for five years.

The military could also have waited for the election scheduled for October 15. In fact, it was the opposition that was clamouring for a postponement, not Thaksin. He had already held one election in April but the results were annulled when the five-man Election Commission faced even greater trouble than India's did over Navin Chawla's wife's non-governmental organisation. One commission member died (in the nick of time, they say), one quit in disgrace, and three were jailed for four years for what the court quaintly calls "malfeasance". Apparently, the commission indulged in some jiggery pokery when the TRT didn't win the mandatory 20 per cent of the vote in the first round of polling.

Thai politics is like an onion. Peel off one layer and there's another. Sacred and sacrosanct, untouched by whiff of slander or scandal, personifying the mythic Ramayana connection, His Majesty the King (that's how the Thai media must always mention him) holds the core. But age and ill health are taking its toll in the modern Ram Rajya whose King Bhumibol Adulyadej is styled Rama IX. Apparently, Thaksin showed scant respect to the monarch by greeting eminent foreign visitors during the ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the king's accession before members of the royal family had done so. Then he gave offence again by implying that a retired army general close to the king was behind a supposed military plot to assassinate him. His adversaries dismissed the charge as only a political stunt. But stunt or not, many Thais admitted that Thaksin would probably win anyway, with a narrower margin perhaps but without benefit of rigging.

After all, he showed that Ram Rajya works. Thailand is forging ahead. Bangkok's stinking canals have long gone. Its roads boast many lanes, flyovers sweep overhead and the smart skytrain is matched by a new underground. Glittering shopping malls are sprouting everywhere. Ayutthaya, the ancient capital supposedly replicating our Ayodhya, has blossomed into a theme park. Tourism is booming.

So, the military "" and, perhaps, the palace too "" was nervous about what else Thaksin might sell off if he rode back to power on October 15 with a renewed mandate. That's what the coup pre-empted with its promise of an interim prime minister in two weeks and elections not this October but next. The coup leaders are said to have been worried in particular by the possibility that Shin Corp's new owners might be able to snoop on Thailand's satellite network.

Temasek Holdings is the Singapore government's umbrella organisation for its multifarious investments. It's a low profile outfit that hardly even admits its existence in public. But Temasek's portfolio is valued at more than $50 billion, US again.

The chairman, 49-year-old Ho Ching, is the wife of Singapore's prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong. A qualified electrical engineer with a Masters degree from Stanford, she is regarded as one of the island republic's most formidable women. According to Forbes magazine, she is among the world's 30 most powerful females; Fortune reckons she is the 11th richest women in the world outside the US. Paranoiac Thais may not relish her control of a vital aspect of their life.

Did Thaksin suspect they might strike? I cannot but wonder because of one little detail. When the late King Farouk left Egypt for good, ousted by Mohammed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, it was with 204 suitcases and trunks. Thaksin didn't do too badly with more than 100, though he was supposedly going only for a short trip to address the United Nations in New York.

"The amount of luggage was not unusual," says Group Captain Montol Suchookorn of the Royal Thai Air Force, suggesting many such mounds may have been shifted each time the former premier travelled abroad. His fate is a reminder that Third World leaders go globetrotting at their own peril. But, at least, one can be fairly certain Thaksin "" whose wife has joined him now "" won't have to live on a shoestring in exile.

sunanda.dattaray@gmail.com