Profile: Thaksin Shinawatra

Ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra has remained at the heart of Thailand's political dramas

Thaksin Shinawatra, one of the most influential and polarising characters in Thai politics, has had his eight-year prison sentence reduced to one year.

The 74-year old former prime minister was greeted by hundreds of cheering supporters as his private jet touched down at Don Muaeng Airport last month, after 15 years of self-imposed exile.

He was taken to the Supreme Court, which had sentenced him based on convictions over corruption allegation charges that he says were politically motivated.

Thaksin wrote to King Vajiralongkorn to ask for a pardon shortly afterwards, but the royal announcement stated that he had now accepted his crime, and shown remorse.

Upon his return, he was taken to jail. However, he was almost immediately moved to the luxury wing of a state hospital, after complaining of heart problems. He is likely to stay there.

Despite his absence from Thailand, Thaksin is still a significant figure in the country's politics.

The Pheu Thai party, now led by his youngest daughter Paetongtarn, 37 will likely play a leading role in the new ruling coalition.

A telecommunications billionaire, he was the first prime minister in Thailand's history to lead an elected government through a full term in office.

He was enormously popular, especially among the rural poor, but also proved a divisive figure and was deeply unpopular among many of Bangkok's rich elite.

After more than five years in power, he was ousted in a military coup in September 2006, accused of corruption and abuse of power.

Mr Thaksin has been in self-imposed exile since - mostly in London or Dubai.

He also owned a controlling stake in English Premier League football club Manchester City, which he was forced to sell off in 2008 after his assets were frozen by Thai authorities over allegations of corruption and conflict of interest.

In the 17 years since being unseated in a 2006 military coup, the country has seen 10 prime ministers. But Thaksin has remained very much at the heart of Thailand's political dramas.

Former policeman

Born in 1949 in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin started his career as a police officer.

In 1973, he received a government scholarship to study for a masters degree in criminal justice in the United States.

When he returned he went into business, and during the late 1980s began building a successful telecommunications empire.

He founded the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party in 1998, and its rapid emergence transformed the country's politics.

Thaksin swept into office in 2001, soundly defeating the old guard from the Democrat Party.

Poorer voters liked his offers of cheap medical care and debt relief, his nationalist platform and his contempt for the "Bangkok elite".

But big business also liked him for his CEO-style of government and his "Thaksinomics" policies, which created a new boom in a country where the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s had begun.

Thaksin also won support for his handling of the tsunami relief effort after the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster, which devastated parts of south-western Thailand.

Other things were not so easy. He had to face the fallout from his government's suppression of news of an outbreak of bird flu, as well as criticism over the violent deaths of more than 2,500 people during a crackdown on drugs in 2003.

Thailand's Corruption Commission found he had failed to declare all of his wealth, and he was also criticised over the government's handling of the upsurge in violence in the largely Muslim south.

Yet each time he faced pressure, Thaksin appeared to ride out the storm, his backing among his key supporters - Thailand's rural voters - apparently unscathed.

Political turmoil

It was his family's decision to sell its shares in one of Thailand's biggest telecom groups, Shin Corp, that led to Thaksin's downfall.

Thaksin's youngest daughter Paetongtarn leads the Pheu Thai party

The sale, in early 2006, which netted his family and friends $1.9bn, angered many urban Thais, who complained that Thaksin's family had avoided paying tax and passed control of an important national asset to Singaporean investors.

Amid large-scale street demonstrations, Thaksin called a snap general election for April 2006, effectively telling opponents to "put up or shut up".

But main opposition parties boycotted the polls and many voters chose to register a "no vote".

Faced with the threat of further protests, Thaksin said he would step down. He did for a few weeks, but returned to office in May.

In September that year, following months of political uncertainty, the military seized power while the prime minister was out of the country.

Thaksin relocated to the UK, but shortly after his allies won the first post-coup elections in late 2007, he returned to Thailand.

There he and his family faced a raft of corruption charges - allegations which the former Thai leader probably expected to come to nothing.

But the courts - greatly empowered by a new military-backed constitution - pursued the cases against him and his family with new vigour.

First his wife, Potjaman, and then Thaksin himself were sentenced to jail terms - with the Supreme Court finding the former leader guilty of corruption.

Thaksin left Thailand, failing to return home for a court appearance from the Olympic Games in Beijing in August 2008, and became a fugitive.

Since divorcing his wife - who now lives in Bangkok after her sentence was suspended - he has spent most of his time in Dubai.

Political parties backed by Thaksin and led by his proxies have consistently won elections, but have been unable to hold on to power.

In 2008, a successor party to Thai Rak Thai was dissolved by the courts in 2008, and in that year two of its prime ministers were also disqualified.

After Thaksin's sister Yingluck won a landslide in the 2011 election, she was disqualified by the courts, and her government ousted by a second coup. She is also living in exile.

At the 2019 election, Pheu Thai won far more seats than any other party, but was prevented from forming a government.

But in May, the progressive Move Forward party stunned observers by winning the most seats in the lower house, well ahead of Pheu Thai.

Its leader Pita Limjaroenrat's bid to become PM was swiftly ended, as he was suspended from parliament by the constitutional court.

It paved the way for Thaksin's return, as Pheu Thai brokered a power-sharing deal with two military-linked parties.