The king, the courts and the former PM

Nicholas Farrelly - 01 Aug, 2008

In Thailand, even an immensely popular and wealthy politician like Thaksin Shinawatra cannot match the authority wielded by the king. If the courts are now showing unprecedented steadfastness in pursuing Mr Thaksin, it could well be because they believe they have royal backing.

– Extracted from Jonathan Head, “Thaksin family’s gamble fails to pay”, BBC News, 31 July 2008.

About the Author
Nicholas Farrelly
Dr Nicholas Farrelly is the co-founder of New Mandala. A graduate of the Australian National University and the University of Oxford, over the past 20 years he has undertaken research in Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, China and India. Nicholas is Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania and formerly the Associate Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University, where he also led the ANU Myanmar Research Centre from 2015 to 2017.
New Mandala is supported by the Australian National University (ANU), a world-leading centre of research and teaching on Southeast Asia that has hosted the site since its founding in 2006. New Mandala's editors make editorial decisions independently of the ANU, and the views expressed at New Mandala are solely those of contributors and do not represent the institutional position(s) of the ANU or any of its constituent parts.
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