File Photo: Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra looks on as he speaks to Reuters during an interview in Singapore February 23, 2016. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
March 30, 2019
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has revoked royal decorations that had been awarded to ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a document published on Saturday in the royal gazette showed.
The king’s order came less then a week after a disputed election in which a pro-Thaksin political party is seeking to form a “democratic front” against a party that wants to keep the leader of a 2014 military coup in power.
The royal gazette document said the king’s action was due to Thaksin’s guilty sentence in a corruption case in 2008 and his fleeing the country, which was “a highly inappropriate behavior”, the document said.
Last Saturday, the king also made an unexpected and cryptic statement on the eve of the March 24 election, recalling a comment made by his late father on the need to put “good people” in power and to prevent “bad people from … creating chaos”.
(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Catherine Evans)
