Quick Take | Rodrigo Duterte: Thaksin Shinawatra, version 2.0?
From wars on drugs to crackdowns on Muslim rebels and unapologetic populism – the playbook of Thailand’s former prime minister seems to have a new reader: the Philippine president
With the old and tired 24-hour news cycle dead, buried and slimmed down to something like 24 minutes – spawning a stunting of attention spans – perhaps it is no surprise that to many, alpha-male Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte seems to be a bit of a one-off.
While his approach to politics appears to see every problem as a nail to which a heavy mallet dipped in testosterone is the solution – its essence could well have been lifted straight from the playbook of another Asian premier whose tempestuous term in office is still rattling political cages in the nation from which he – and now his younger sister – are on the run.
From his deadly “war on drugs”, which has killed thousands, to his mass populist appeal and no-nonsense approach to Islamist separatists in the south, sartorially-challenged Duterte is arguably aping a considerably smoother political operator, former-now-fugitive prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra.
Both men spoke recently, Duterte admitting his “war on drugs” is unwinnable but pledging to carry on, and Thaksin, stirring the pot from afar with the help of 18th century French lawyer-philosopher, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, by tweeting: “There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
