The Puea Thai party led by Yingluck Shinawatra has emerged victorious after Sunday’s elections in Thailand, the latest round in the extraordinary story of red shirt versus yellow shirt politics. Telecommunications multimillionaire Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party had won the Thai elections in 2001 by a substantial majority, and the party was returned with a large majority in the February 2005 elections, with strong support from rural constituencies.
However, Thaksin was the subject of a number of corruption allegations, and the government ground to a halt in the face of widespread protests by the yellow-shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). Elections called for April 2006 were boycotted by the opposition, and new elections were called for October, but the military seized power in September 2006. A new constitution was drawn up in 2007 and elections were held in December 2007, with the People Power Party (PPP, successor to the now-outlawed TRT Party) winning and taking power in 2008.
More yellow-shirt street protests by the PAD followed, countered by red-shirt protests by PPP supporters. In December 2008 the Constitutional Court made a finding of electoral fraud adverse to the PPP, and the PAD formed a new government. Widespread red shirt protests followed in 2010. Now Yingluck Shinawatra, the younger sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, has been voted into power at the head of the red shirt brigade, amid accusations of vote rigging.