I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with Thai politics. I’ve tried to understand but it’s just so… foreign.
Coming from a western democracy, I think some of the happenings while he was PM are quite progressive, but were quite unpopular with the Thai people.
For example, Tourism is a huge deal in Thailand.
In the first several years he changed the direction of the Thai tourism engine to try to attract Chinese tourists rather than western tourists. IMO not a terrible idea. You already have western tourists, so attracting Chinese tourists and investment as well can’t hurt. Anecdotally this was unpopular because Thai’s… and I’m struggling to phrase this delicately… tend to dislike Asians of other ethnicities, particularly Chinese.
Recently they legalised weed, which spawned a booming industry and will inevitably drive tourism to new heights previously never dreamed of. Again anecdotally, this is pretty unpopular with Thais because while they like tourists generally they do not want to be perceived as a “drug country”.
Finally, the manner in which he rose to power left a stink on him that he couldn’t rid himself of.
Again, I don’t have a good understanding of all of this and I’m sure a Thai person would see the situation quite differently to myself. Hopefully someone better informed will be along shortly.