In this post-truth, Trumpian world, seemingly nothing can stop a political career. A few years in a Sydney jail back in the 1990s certainly failed to dent Thammanat Prompao’s rise to a position of power and influence in Thailand.
Now the one-time drug convict is a candidate to be prime minister.
Thammanat Prompao is a political electromagnet: he attracts controversy but nothing seems to stick.Credit: Facebook
When he first got into the cabinet in 2019, Thammanat stood up and tried to put rumours of an ancient Sydney arrest to bed by saying he was simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He dared reporters to check the court records.
We did. Thammanat, then known under the first of four identities he has cycled through, had come into contact with crooks while in the Thai army and joined their civilian business. He helped plan the shipment of 3.2 kilograms of heroin from Bangkok, flew to Sydney when the mule went missing, then moved a package across town to Bondi when the police swooped.
“I didn’t import, produce or deal heroin,” he told the media. Technically correct, if misleading: he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of heroin, was jailed for four years and deported on release from Parklea prison.
He did his time for the crime, and that might have been that. Thammanat changed his name repeatedly, darted from scandal to scandal, amassed a fortune and created a political fiefdom while trying to hide his crime.
After the truth came out, he threatened 100 lawsuits (none arrived) and weathered the scandal. He used the excuse that he was in “state-sponsored accommodation”, told parliament what he was caught with was flour, which led to opprobrium, memes and jokes on protest stages at his expense. To be fair, the police had swapped out the heroin hydrochloride with a purity of 74 per cent for another substance.
That he lied about his criminal past did not hurt him either, politically. Despite his opponents taking the case up with Thailand’s highest court, it was ruled that his international crime was no barrier to high political office. Never mind that the drugs were imported to Australia from somewhere.
