Newin Chidchob

Newin Chidchob (2012)

Newin Chidchob ( Thai เน วิน ชิด ชอบ , RTGS : Chitchop, pronunciation: [neːwin t͡ɕʰítt͡ɕʰɔ̂ːp] ; born October 4, 1958 in Buri Ram ) is a Thai politician. He was an important representative of the Thai-Rak-Thai party of Thaksin Shinawatra and from 2005 to 2006 Minister in the Prime Minister's Office. After Thaksin's fall and the dissolution of the TRT, Newin was expelled from political office for five years, but he continues to exert significant influence on Thai politics. In 2008, members of parliament close to him founded the Bhumjaithai party , of which Newin is the de facto leader. He is seen as a political puller of national influence. He has been the owner and president of the Buriram United football club since 2009 .

Live and act

Newin's home province of Buri Ram is located in the south of the Isan region , on the border with Cambodia . His family comes from the Khmer people . Newin's male ancestors were elephant drivers ( mahuts ). His father, Chai Chidchob, was a community leader (kamnan) and later a politician. Newin Chidchob got his first name after Ne Win , the former ruler of Burma .

Newin followed his father Chai, who as community leader and owner of stone mills gained relatively great influence in his home province and was re-elected to parliament in every election from 1969, into politics. Chai and Newin led a group of MPs from Buri Ram who decided again and again from election to election which party to run for. Newin was repeatedly accused of buying votes . In 1988 he was elected to parliament for the United Democratic Party for the first time. In March 1992 he switched to the Samakkhi Tham Party , and in September of the same year to the Chart Thai Party . When it won the election in 1995, Newin became deputy finance minister in the cabinet of Banharn Silpa-archa . In 1996 Newin was involved in the scandal surrounding the Bangkok Bank of Commerce , which, before its collapse, had generously supported the Chart Thai Party and its politicians, including Newin, financially because of excessively risky and sometimes fraudulent transactions. The government broke up and Newin switched with his group (from 1996 his wife Karuna was also a member of parliament) to the Solidarity Party . From 1997 to 2001 Newin was Deputy Agriculture Minister in Chuan Leekpai's government . In 2001 Newin's group returned to the Chart Thai Party.

The new Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra made Newin Deputy Minister of Commerce in March 2002, and when the government was reshuffled in October of the same year, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Agriculture. In 2004 Newin and his group defected to Thaksin's Thai-Rak-Thai party. Within the TRT, which was composed of several inner-party wings, Newin led the so-called "Buriram group". After the 2005 election he kept the post of Deputy Minister of Agriculture, but in August he became a Minister in the Prime Minister's Office. The government was overthrown in a military coup in September 2006. The Thai-Rak-Thai party was dissolved in 2007 by a decision of the constitutional tribunal for violating electoral law, and its leading members, including Newin, were banned from political office for five years. Most of their MPs, including the "Group of Friends of Newin" (klum phuean Newin) , however, formed again as the Party of People's Power (PPP).

Newin was considered to be Thaksin's main strategist and a key figure in the PPP. The party won the election in September 2007, and Newin's father became President of Parliament. In December 2008, the Constitutional Court also dissolved the PPP. The “Friends of Newin's group” changed sides on this occasion. She did not join the Thaksin-backed PPP successor Pheu Thai party , but formed the Bhumjaithai party , which formed a coalition with the previously opposition Democratic Party and whose chairman Abhisit Vejjajiva helped become prime minister. The reason for this was probably money payments that Newin is said to have negotiated with the leadership of the Democrats and the military leadership around General Anupong Paochinda . In Abhisit's government, the Bhumjaithai Party provided three ministers and four vice ministers.

In 2009 Newin Chidchob bought the Thai Premier League football club FC PEA , moved it from Ayutthaya to Buri Ram and renamed it Buriram PEA FC and later Buriram United . He has been president of the association ever since. Under Newin's aegis, the club won the Thai championship in 2011 and 2013, as well as the FA Cup and the League Cup in 2011, 2012 and 2013 .

Newin was a close confidante of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha (formerly Raksriaksorn), who died in 2018 , the owner of the duty-free chain King Power and one of the richest Thai people and president of the English Premier League Club Leicester City . King Power is also a main sponsor of Newin's Club Buriram United.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Duncan McCargo : Thailand. In: Regional Outlook Southeast Asia 2010-2011. ISEAS Publishing, Singapore 2010, p. 55.
2. ^ Charles Keyes: Magic kingdom. Magic, mobs and millennialism. In: Bangkok Post, April 25, 2009.
3. ↑ Jonathan Head: Thailand reverts to old-style politics. BBC News, December 12, 2008.
4. ^ Duncan McCargo: Politics and the Press in Thailand. Media machinations. Routledge, 2000, p. 113.
5. ^ Tom Wingfield: Democratization and economic crisis in Thailand. Political business and the changing dynamic of the Thai state. In: Political Business in East Asia. Routledge, 2002, p. 270.
6. ↑ Michael Kelly Connors: Thailand. The Facts and F (r) rictions of Ruling. In: Southeast Asian Affairs 2005. ISEAS Publications, Singapore 2005, p. 371.
7. ^ Duncan McCargo: Thailand. State of Anxiety. In: Southeast Asian Affairs 2008. ISEAS Publications, Singapore 2008, p. 341.
8. ↑ Federico Ferrara: Thailand Unhinged. Unraveling the Myth of a Thai-style Democracy. Equinox Publishing, Singapore 2010.
9. ↑ Kevin Hewison: Thailand's conservative democratization. In: East Asia's New Democracies. Deepening, reversal, non-liberal alternatives. Routledge, 2010, p. 132.
10. ^ " Chang Noi ": Newinomics. Is the power broker moving forward to the past? In: The Nation , September 6, 2010.
11. ^ Leon Mann: Sven-Goran Eriksson aiming high at Leicester City. BBC Sport, 4th August 2011.

Note on Thai names : This article addresses people by their first name.