Elected in 2001 with landslide support from the poor, Thaksin soon showed he had little interest in strengthening Thailand’s democracy. Indeed, like Hugo Chávez, Vladimir Putin, Evo Morales, and other leaders who have emerged in many weak democracies today, Thaksin became an elected autocrat. He used his power to threaten Thailand’s free media, eviscerate its independent civil service, and launch a bloody campaign against insurgents in the country’s Muslim-majority south. Like other elected autocrats, Thaksin also rewarded political allies with large government contracts and punished political enemies financially.
By 2005, when Thaksin was reelected, again with massive support from the poor, he dominated the country’s political landscape. And yet Thailand had not become Equatorial Guinea or Libya; the Thai middle classes, who had led the democratic revolution before, could have fought back against Thaksin at the ballot box, through the remaining independent news outlets or in the courts. But instead, like middle classes in many emerging democracies today, they had grown disillusioned with democracy, believing that it had delivered only elected autocracy and that it would empower the poor at their expense.