Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin Shinawatra (born July 26, 1949 in Sankamphaeng, Chiang Mai province) is the prime minister of Thailand and the leader of the populist Thai Rak Thai party. As head of the Shin Corporation which controls (among others) Thailand's largest mobile phone operator Advanced Info Service, he is also reputedly the richest man in Thailand.
Thaksin graduated from the Thai Police Cadet Academy and joined the Royal Thai Police Department in 1973, but went on to obtain a doctorate in criminal justice at Sam Houston State University in the USA in 1978. After reaching the exalted position of Deputy Superintendent of the Policy and Planning Sub-division, General Staff Division, Metropolitan Police Bureau, Thaksin quit the police to form the Shinawatra Computer and Communications Group in 1987. One of the group's members, Shinawatra Paging, is now Thailand's largest mobile phone operator AIS. In 1990, Thaksin made a daring but successful bid for a 20-billion baht, 20-year concession to operate the Telephone Organization of Thailand
Thaksin joined the political fray in 1994 as foreign minister under the wing of the Palang Dharma Party, promising to clean up politics. This was followed by a brief stint as Deputy Prime Minister and head of the PDP, ending in 1997 when the party imploded. In 1998, Thaksin formed his own Thai Rak Thai ("Thais Love Thais") party and started banging on the anti-corruption drum again, propelling him to the post of prime minister in January 2001.
Similarly to Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Thaksin has been dogged by the conflict of interest between his post as prime minister and his massive business interests, and in 2001 he only narrowly escaped conviction (and a 5-year ban on holding political office) for concealing financial assets. Thaksin's government has been unabashedly populist, throwing money at popular causes like cheap loans to farmers and subsidized health care with little care for how to pay for this. Thaksin's 2003 campaign against drug dealers, which amounted to the extrajudicial execution of several hundred suspects, was heavily criticized by civil rights watchdogs. There have also been complaints that Thaksin has been stacking the civil service with his relatives and business associates, eg. elevating his cousin Gen. Chaiyasit Shinawatra from a remote district to Army commander-in-chief.
