Sudden death of patriarch Chonsawat rocks powerful political clan

He was rushed to hospital on Thursday after losing consciousness due to heatstroke during a race-car practice at Chang International Circuit in Buri Ram. He was pronounced dead early on Friday at the age of 54.

Chonsawat served as president of the Samut Prakan Chamber of Commerce. More significantly, he was viewed as the patriarch of the Pak Nam faction in the ruling Palang Pracharath Party – though he held no political position at the time of his death.

Chonsawat led a political empire founded by his father, former deputy interior minister Vatana Asavahame, who has lived overseas since fleeing a prison sentence for corruption.

Dominating Samut Prakan politics
Six out of seven Samut Prakan MPs from the general election of March 2019 came from Chonsawat’s faction, including his cousin Akkarawat. Chonsawat’s other cousin Torsak is a party-list MP for the ruling party.

The Asavahame family dominates local politics in Samut Prakan, which lies just south of Bangkok.

Chonsawat’s wife and former singing diva, Nantida Kaewbuasai, currently serves as chief executive of the Samut Prakan Provincial Administrative Organisation (PAO), the first woman to do so.

Prapaporn Asavahame, the widowed wife of Chonsawat’s late brother Poonpol, is now the Samut Prakan mayor.

Chontida Asavahame, the only daughter of Chonsawat and Nantida, is secretary to the PAO chief.

And Pim Asavahame, daughter of Mayor Prapaporn, is a PAO council member.

Chonsawat was born on November 19, 1968, to Vatana and Chanram Asavahame. His two elder brothers are Pibul, and Poonpol, who died in 2015. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Bangkok University’s Faculty of Business Management.

Jailed for electoral fraud
Chonsawat entered politics in 1999 at the age of 30 after being elected mayor of Samut Prakan, thanks mainly to his father who was building a strong political empire.

That same year, Chonsawat was accused of malfeasance in connection with electoral fraud during the local council election. After a legal battle lasting for over a decade, he was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison in August 2015. He was pardoned a year later in September.

He faced more legal action in October last year. The National Anti-Corruption Commission indicted Chonsawat for malfeasance in connection with temple subsidies involving over 100 million baht while he was serving as the PAO chief.

As PAO chief, Chonsawat initiated a string of development projects including the Samut Prakan City Observatory, which has become a major landmark of the province. He also managed to shore up his political empire after it was undermined by the corruption scandal involving his father.

At that time, Chonsawat divorced his first wife Nantida and married actress Janie Tienphosuwan. But they parted ways a year later. He reunited with Nantida after completing his jail term.

In 2018, the Supreme Court sentenced his father Vatana to three years in jail in absentia for land procurement fraud in connection with the 23-billion-baht Klong Dan wastewater treatment project, one of the largest and longest-running corruption cases in Thailand’s history.

Family’s waning influence
After three decades, the Asavahame family’s influence in Samut Prakan started to wane with the growing power of Thaksin Shinawatra in the early 2000s. Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party managed to sweep most MP seats in the province and continued to do so after it was dissolved by court order and replaced by his proxy People Power and Pheu Thai parties.

Candidates backed by the Asavahame family were defeated in elections between 2001 and 2011.

Vatana once claimed during an interview that Thaksin had sent his aide to persuade him to join Thai Rak Thai ahead of the 2005 general election. He declined the offer, and the result was a devastating election loss for his faction.

The veteran politician left Thailand in 2008 shortly before the Criminal Court was scheduled to read its verdict in the case against him. He reportedly fled to China.

Rebuilding political empire
Meanwhile in Thailand, Chonsawat managed to win the election for Samut Prakan PAO chief executive in May 2011. His victory fuelled hopes of a political revival for his political empire, but they were dashed when its candidates lost to Pheu Thai in the July 2011 general election.

The Asavahame family’s political influence shrank to the municipal area of Samut Prakan. However, they rebounded strongly in the 2019 election by winning all but one of the MP seats contested in the province.

Following the victory, Chonsawat began restoring the strength of his political empire, making further progress with the victory of his wife and his sister-in-law as top local administrators.

However, his untimely loss signals difficult days ahead for whoever is chosen to succeed him as new chief of the political clan.