Y ingluck Shinawatra, youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, walks up some rickety wooden steps and on to a hastily erected stage in a muddy field in Fang, a town in Thailand’s northern rice belt. The 43-year-old political neophyte is greeted by a roar from thousands of people, mostly women, many of whom are wearing the red associated with opposition forces concentrated in the poorer north of the country.
If the slogan of Ms Yingluck’s party, “Thaksin says, Puea Thai does”, leaves any doubt as to whom she represents, her opening remark expunges any ambiguity. “Let me introduce myself,” she shouts, as people thrust roses and garlands towards the podium. “I am Thaksin Shinawatra’s sister. My brother says ‘hello’.”
Mr Thaksin, wildly popular in much of the countryside and despised by many of the middle class, is back at the heart of Thai politics. The nomination of Ms Yingluck has turned the election into a referendum on her exiled brother. That is not bad for a man who was ousted in a coup five years ago, is a fugitive from Thai law – he was sentenced to two years in absentia for abuse of state power – and who now lives several thousand miles away, in Dubai.