How will Thaksin Shinawatra's return shape the future of Thai politics?

When Thailand's deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra went into self-imposed exile in 2008 facing a raft of corruption charges following his ouster in a military coup, he issued a hand-written note.

"If I am fortunate enough," wrote Thaksin, a deeply polarising telecom billionaire who broke the mould of Thai politics, "I will return and die on Thai soil."

On Tuesday, the 74-year-old flew into Bangkok on a private jet, just hours before the latest incarnation of the populist party he founded reclaimed the premiership power in an alliance with parties linked to the generals who ousted the government of his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in 2014.

Upon his arrival, he emerged briefly from the terminal building to bow and offer a floral garland at a portrait of King Maha Vajiralongkorn as a mark of respect, before waving to hundreds of supporters waiting for him.

Shortly after, the former Manchester City owner was taken to the Supreme Court, which ordered him jailed for eight years over three convictions passed in his absence. But with is party expected to be back in power, his time in prison may just serve as a political detour.

It isn’t clear yet how long Thaksin will actually serve of his prison sentence. Officials have said he, like other inmates, can apply for a royal pardon from day one.

Thaksin has been Thailand's most prominent politician for decades, retaining outsized influence despite the years away.

"It closes a crucial chapter in Thailand's politics," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, said of Thaksin's return.

"He has been such a dominant force over the past two decades."

To the rural masses, Thaksin is loved as the first leader to pay attention to the needs of millions living beyond Bangkok's bright lights.

To many in the urban middle class and the royalist elite, Thaksin was a crony capitalist who plundered the economy while in power from 2001 until he was ousted in a 2006 military coup, and later led a protest movement that reduced parts of Bangkok to smouldering ruins in 2010.

A government led by his sister, Yingluck, was swept to power in a 2011 election, only to be ousted in the 2014 coup after relentless street protests led by his conservative enemies.

Thaksin's rivals accused him of winning power with handouts to rural voters. After his initial election win in 2001, he formed the first elected government to serve a full term, after which it was re-elected.

Critics also accused him of abusing his electoral mandate to systematically dismantle constitutional checks and balances, while cementing his authoritarian rule.

Media watchdogs said he oversaw a steady erosion of press freedom. A 2003 war on drugs in which 2,500 people were killed boosted his image as a crime-buster but sparked outrage from human rights groups, who said he was riding roughshod over civil liberties.

'CEO prime minister'

Born into a family of ethnic Chinese silk merchants in 1949 in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin became a policeman in 1973 before pursuing graduate degrees in the United States.

On his return, he established a computer dealership that he grew into Thailand's largest mobile network, Shin Corporation, that laid the foundation for his rise to become one of the country's richest men.

A shrewd operator who rarely minces his words, an increasingly wealthy Thaksin entered politics in the mid-1990s, initially serving as foreign minister and then deputy prime minister.

In 1998, he founded the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) that led him to power, starting off a premiership in 2001 during which he expanded spending on healthcare, rural development and farming subsidies, his "Thaksinomics".

But the brash Thaksin, who called himself Thailand's first "CEO prime minister", faced royalist accusations that he was undermining the revered monarchy, which he denied.

Simmering anger exploded in 2006 when he sold his shares of Shin Corporation for 73.3 billion baht ($2.08 billion) to Singapore's Temasek.

His opponents complained of conflict of interest, alleging that the prime minister's family did not pay tax on capital gains from the deal.

The military leveraged middle class anger to stage a bloodless coup in September 2006 when Thaksin was abroad, but his loyalists kept winning general elections.

Instead of fighting the corruption charges, which he said were politically motivated, Thaksin skipped bail and went into self-exile initially in Britain, where he bought Premier League club Manchester City. His critics called the purchase a political gimmick.

He returned briefly to Thailand in early 2008 to face the various legal charges filed against him only to go into self-exile months later. He was said to have lived in in the United Arab Emirates for years.

'Fates are intertwined'

Thaksin has said his decision to return has nothing to do with the Pheu Thai party’s bid for power, but many believe the party made deals with pro-military parties to facilitate his return.

Just as the media frenzy swirled over Thaksin's return, members of parliament gathered on Tuesday to elect a new prime minister - his old ally and fellow businessman, Srettha Thavisin from the Pheu Thai Party.

The Thaksin-linked Pheu Thai Party leads an 11-party coalition that includes two parties allied with its former military adversaries, and they hold 314 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives.

Srettha also needs support from the non-elected Senate, appointed by a previous military government, and it appears that he has won enough votes from senators.

The Senate has 250 seats, and a total of 375 votes from both chambers of the parliament is required to elect a new prime minister.

Pheu Thai came in second in the May elections but took over leadership in forming a new government, after the surprise winner, the progressive Move Forward Party, was repeatedly rejected by conservative senators appointed by a previous military government.

Pheu Thai has been heavily criticised by some of its supporters for backtracking on a pre-election pledge not to join hands with pro-military parties. Party officials, however, defended the decision by saying it was necessary to break the political deadlock and seek reconciliation after decades of deep political divisions.

Napon Jatusripitak, a political science researcher and visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said the fates of Pheu Thai and Thaksin are intertwined.

“Thaksin has managed to make this election about himself personally, and the direction of a Pheu Thai-led coalition heavily depends on his personal whims.”

Napon told the Associated Press news agency that Thaksin’s decision to return now suggests that “he has received assurances that he will not have to serve a prison sentence in full.”

“Thaksin’s (previous) plans to return to Thailand were postponed after the election results were announced — this implies a strong connection between the election, formation of coalitions, and selection of the prime minister on one hand, and Thaksin’s personal agenda on the other,” he said.