The coup removed the last remnants of the government of Yingluck Shinawatra — the sister of the previously ousted Mr Thaksin — and seen by many as a proxy so her brother could govern from exile overseas.
One long-time Thailand observer, journalist Andrew Macgregor Marshall, wrote in the Australian Financial Review in 2014 that Mr Thaksin was seen as a threat to Thailand's elite — the "royalist bureaucrats, tycoons and generals, who wield immense informal influence behind the scenes".