In The Clear

In the weeks before last friday's Constitutional Court 8-7 acquittal of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of corruption charges, you could see the toll the impending verdict was taking on him. The eyes sagged. The usually smooth skin seemed more wrinkled. The smug smile would occasionally straighten, the corners of his thin-lipped mouth almost turning to a resigned frown. If he was bitter, however, he would never admit it, not to a reporter, nor to his Cabinet, and probably not to his friends. Yet the possibility his tenure would be abbreviated by a guilty ruling had become the defining attribute of his term. Implicit in every question was If, as in, If you are still in office, If you are still Prime Minister, If you can lead your country.

It was a politician's instinct, combined with a businessman's sense of the market—in this case the voters to whom he had so successfully sold himself last Jan. 10—that would send him back out onto the hustings while the Constitutional Court deliberated. That populist approach had swept him to the biggest electoral majority in Thai parliamentary history. He would take his case directly to the people.

Thaksin is an effortless campaigner, his languorous walk, the gradual coming together of his palms in a Buddhist greeting, the soft grip of his handshake, all his movements coalesce to communicate equilibrium, an almost soothing presence. On any street, in any temple, at any doorway, he is the calm center of the media storm that follows him everywhere. He is the first Thai politician to exploit the mass media of TV and the Internet, to understand that a good sound bite on the tube is worth much more than making his point in a sit-down meeting with a few prominent parliamentarians. Before Thaksin, Thai Prime Ministers were almost disdainful of television, restricting their appearances to mall openings, military ceremonies and bowing before the King. Thaksin, however, romances the cameras, making himself more available than most Thai pols. Though he hasn't mastered the nuances of the medium—he can sometimes seem defensive when he feels he's not receiving the proper deference—he has taken to it with the easy grace of a natural. If Al Gore is a politician who burns too hot, whose nervousness and eagerness make those viewing him, on TV or in person, squirm with discomfort, then Thaksin is blessed with cool. It's almost a pleasure to watch him.

Part of that cool, he will tell you, emanates from his success in myriad businesses. But others will claim that it is an image created as much by buying off and bullying the press. He's not shy about throwing his clout around, and that's caused critics and a sometimes-hostile press to label him an authoritarian. But in Thailand, being rich is considered a virtue, and being very rich is practically godly. Thaksin benefits from being one of the country's richest men, with a fortune estimated at more than $1.2 billion and interests in sectors ranging from cell phones to satellites. His confidence is that of a man who has had vast, bankable successes. His election campaign inculcated in Thais the idea that if he could make billions for himself, then surely he could generate a few thousand baht for the bar girls, farmers and noodle sellers. During his campaign, almost every neighborhood seemed festooned with his Thai Rak Thai (Thai Love Thai) party's red, blue and white logo, and the Bangkok taxi drivers and Chiang Mai tuk tuk operators would flash you a grin and a thumbs-up when you mentioned his name. "Thaksin make money," they would say, "Thaksin make money for Thai people."

Outside of Japan, Thailand has had perhaps the most disappointing succession of Prime Ministers of any major Asian nation. Since 1991 there have been eight other Prime Ministers, all of whom, at their best, conveyed an image of dull impropriety. (Quick, who was Prime Minister before Thaksin's predecessor Chuan Leekpai? Didn't think you remembered.) Thaksin, on the other hand, has managed to associate himself with wealth, with economic growth, with mobile phones and the Internet. And by now, even remote Thai villages that don't yet have Internet access know it is something they should want.

On that last, pre-verdict campaign-style swing through Northern Thailand, as he works the crowd at Sankampaeng village, where the locals, adhering to Thaksin's One Village, One Product program, are proudly displaying the reams of mulberry paper they have been making, he continuously reminds his constituents of his connection with all things futuristic, shiny and new. He vows to distribute more money without government interference, without a single baht unfairly withheld, without unnecessary delay. He says in his Northern Thai accent that he is one of them, that he knows they can't wait for the money, that they need the Internet, that they need e-commerce. His voice is a nasal tenor, the run of his rambling vowels is corralled by strong, pronounced consonants. "Do you know what I see?" he asks the bewildered villagers who have been sitting in the hot sun for two hours waiting for a glimpse of their new PM. "I see you selling your mulberry paper over the Web. I see you having access to great wealth. I see your families happy, employed."

Later, Koijai Linsinjoy, 44, a village woman dressed in the traditional magenta red sash and black dress, stands in the shade of a local mulberry pressing factory. Does she like the Prime Minister? Oh yes. Does she think he will help make her rich? Oh yes. Does she believe what he said about selling mulberry paper over the Web? Oh yes. Has she ever seen the Internet? She shakes her head. No.

That he has managed to define himself, somehow, as synonymous with Thailand's technologist tomorrow may be Thaksin's greatest trick. In these weeks before the verdict comes down, he crisscrosses the country, assuring rural voters that he and he alone can make Thailand prosperous. If this Constitutional Court rules against him, he implies, the people should not stand for it. Some members of his party publicly warn of mob violence in the event of a guilty verdict. Throwing Thaksin out of office would be like taking money out of your own sarong and burning it. This Constitutional Court, these opposition politicians, are they going to make you rich?

Thaksin ran against the court. And he won. When the verdict came down, there was a depressing predictability to it. In our most cynical moments we suspected it would turn out like this; that, just as it seemed Thailand was moving toward genuine democracy and true rule of law and an incorruptible judicial system, the nation would be lurched back to old-style Thai politics, and tainted justice—or even more familiar—sanctimonious injustice. Thaksin had been charged with failing to declare assets when he was Deputy Prime Minister in 1997 and parking those hundreds of millions of dollars worth of his Shin Corp. shares in his drivers' and maids' accounts. Thaksin's defense consisted of testimony ranging from blaming his wife to stating everybody did this (or at least every billionaire did this) and that, at any rate, it was an honest mistake. Most Thais, inasmuch as they follow politics, believe Thaksin was probably guilty. Yet, in part because of his chicken-(curry)-in-every-pot populism, they are ready to forgive him in order to get on with the business of getting rich. He's promised them a million baht for every village, has told them of his One Village, One Product plan, has instituted a new micro-lending program, and he's already delivered on his pledge to offer 30-baht (60-cent) medical care to everyone in the country. No Thai Prime Minister has accomplished this much in his first few months in office.

During a dinner at the Suan Bua resort on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, Thaksin sits surrounded by his Cabinet ministers who are taking a break from a two-day retreat where he is formally articulating his policies. Despite his tub-thumping election campaign he has not actually said what he stands for—aside from his vague blandishments about technology and the future. In his first few months in office he sent conflicting foreign-policy signals, telegraphing an isolationist message at an April conference in Bangkok where he said Thailand would reduce dependence on exports and look inward to solve its economic woes; then seeming to backtrack at the May FORTUNE Global Forum in Hong Kong where he pledged to keep Thailand's economy open. Now he insists he has always been a free trader, but that he wants to promote policies that encourage efficient deployment of domestic capital, to close what he sees as a gap between foreign producers and Thai consumers. To that end, his economic advisers have promoted a policy of higher interest rates, insisting (heretically, to Westerners used to Keynesian pump priming) that is the only way to grow the economy. "We have to create an incentive to save, for money to stay in the country, and to force banks to seek out investments with high returns," he says. "It's the only way to get capital back to work."

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