Discordant former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has returned to Thailand after 15 years.

After spending 15 years in exile, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has returned to Thailand only hours before a referendum that will decide who will rule the nation moving forward.

Conservative royalists have long feared Thailand’s most successful elected leader and supported military coups and lengthy legal battles to weaken him.

The brazen, politically aspirational telecoms tycoon has returned, likely following a covert agreement to avoid jail with the same individuals who deposed his party in a coup in 2014. His pending sentences from criminal prosecutions that he claims were politically motivated range up to 10 years.

He arrived on a private plane from Dubai through Singapore at 09:00 local time (01:00 GMT) in the capital city of Bangkok. Hundreds of his jubilant followers cheered, spoke, and sang as Mr. Thaksin finally kept his numerous vows to come back. Many had made the overnight trip from the stronghold of his party in northeastern Thailand to be present for this occasion.

But most of them were unable to be greeted by Mr. Thaksin. He momentarily exited the airport terminal and approached a portrait of the king and queen while being flanked by his two daughters and son.

After receiving an eight-year prison sentence from the Supreme Court, he was promptly brought to Bangkok Remand Prison. No one anticipates his detention to last very long.

Samniang Kongpolparn, 63, had been waiting to see Mr. Thaksin outside the Don Mueang Airport since Monday night. She had come from Surin province in the northeast, which had long been a bastion for Mr. Thaksin’s party, like many of the other supporters who had gathered there.

“He is our country’s greatest prime minister to date. I wanted to come to support him even though I won’t be able to see him today,” she said. I don’t mind if they make amends with the pro-military administration; otherwise, we’re stuck with the senators. That’s not what we want.

The Pheu Thai party of Mr. Thaksin is anticipated to join a coalition government later today, capping a convoluted three-month process that has brought Thailand full circle.

When the radical, young Move Forward party won the most seats in the May election, there were lofty expectations of a new dawn.

Move Forward and Pheu Thai initially collaborated, but it is now clear that the coalition will include practically everyone but the reformers, including two parties founded by old coup leaders. Pheu Thai had committed not to work with Move Forward’s sworn adversaries.

The two developments, according to Pheu Thai, are unrelated. Few people have that view.

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It is true that the unelected senate, a 250-seat constitutional landmine placed in Thailand’s political landscape by the military junta that ruled for five years following a 2014 coup, has bound Pheu Thai’s hands.

Additionally, Pheu Thai’s election results, which were worse than projected and saw it lose a significant amount of support to Move Forward and fall to second place for the first time, made it harder for it to negotiate.

The 500 MPs who were elected may cast their votes alongside the senators, all of whom were chosen by the junta. Their flimsily disguised mission is to prevent any party from challenging the status quo, the alliance of the monarchy, military, and big business that has dominated Thai decision-making for decades.

Unsurprisingly, despite the coalition’s overwhelming majority in the lower house, they refused to support it. When it came time for Pheu Thai to create a new alliance, it had to accept some of its erstwhile adversaries in order to gain senate backing.

However, some Pheu Thai MPs contend that the party should have resisted joining a government with the most ardently conservative organizations in order to secure a better bargain. Without Pheu Thai and Move Forward, any minority government would fall apart rapidly because the senators are unable to participate in regular parliamentary votes on things like the budget.

The ultra-royalist United Thai Nation party, whose leaders have previously been vehemently critical of the Shinawatra family and their supporters, and who played a key role in toppling the previous Pheu Thai government led by Thaksin’s sister Yingluck, was even invited to join the coalition by the Pheu Thai leadership because it was unwilling to wait. Thai politics have changed significantly, as evidenced by the fact that these two factions will now sit side by side in the same cabinet.

In the end, the long-running dispute with the Shinawatra family was overshadowed for the ultra-royalists by their perception of a danger from Move Forward and from a younger generation of Thais calling for a discussion about the monarchy’s riches and influence.

Being in government once more and securing the arrangement to bring Thaksin back have been higher objectives for the Shinawatras and more traditional, business-minded Pheu Thai members than worrying about the party’s reputation.

However, other people, including inside Pheu Thai, are appalled by the deal’s callous pragmatism. They issue a warning that the party would continue to lose its ardent grassroots supporters and may eventually lose its long-held stronghold over Thai electoral politics.