So long, farewell – Yingluck says goodbye to Thai politics
Former Thai PM, and fugitive, Yingluck Shinawatra is saying she has “washed her hands of Thai politics” because she has suffered enough from her political role in the past.
In a Twitter post she denied a report in Thai newspapers that she had personally nominated a former minister to become Pheu Thai party’s candidate for PM in the forthcoming election, saying that the nomination process is an internal matter for the party.
Ms Yingluck says that for the time being she has had a lot of work and responsibilities to take care of.
Former PM Yingluck has been living in self-exile with her elder brother, former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra. She ‘did a runner’ and secretly escaped Thai borders in the days before the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Offices handed down a five year sentence on her for her failure to stop massive corruption in the controversial rice pledging scheme of her government in September 2017.
International media reported last week stated that Ms Yingluck used a Cambodian passport to register a company in Hong Kong, lending weight to reports she used the neighbouring kingdom to make her dramatic escape from her homeland.
The former PM was also recently named chair of a Chinese port operator in Guangdong province as her family’s political dynasty grow their business presence in southern China.
Yingluck and her billionaire brother Thaksin Shinawatra were both elected prime minister but were toppled in military coups – Thaksin in 2006 and Yingluck in 2014.
