Tänkvärt inlägg från TVF.
It was definitely very much in Thaksin's interests that she should return home. Fleeing would have implied she was guilty and had abandoned her brother's red shirts. Keeping her in Thailand keeps the Shins in the news and has the potential to make her into an Aung San Suu Kyi figure (whom Thaksin has compared himself to along with with Nelson Mandela). Coming back on time gives her an excellent chance of always being granted bail right up to the moment of sentencing and still having the ability to jump bail at the last moment like Thaksin did. Thaksin must have assured her that he will fix things so that her cases will be spun out for a long time and then PT will win an election before her conviction and quash all the cases like he managed to get his wife off her 3 year sentence for tax fraud without ever having to serve a day. If he miscalculates (again) and she ends up being incarcerated, then she will be even more useful to him as an Aung San Suu Kyi figure. Given her lack of intellectual depth and total emotional and financial dependency on her brother, It is hard to see Yingluck making an independent decision about this.
From the junta's side, I would guess they expected her to come back for the reasons given above but must have hoped like hell that she wouldn't. The comparisons with Bush and the disappearing WMD plus the trial and execution of Sadam are not completely out of whack. Yingluck certainly has a strong potential to be a spanner in the works and whatever happens to her will p1ss off a large percentage of the population either way. There are already 2 criminal cases being prepared against her and more could be on the way. If she is convicted in the rice pledging case, it is most likely that a civil case in the Supreme Court for Political Office Holders would follow for damages that could result in seizure of all her assets in Thailand. In addition there is the issue of whether she will still have to undergo impeachment proceedings on at least 2 cases when a new Senate is formed. I think there is also a chance that criminal and impeachment cases could be brought against the entire Yingluck government for the infrastructure bill that was rejected by the Constitutional Court, as it was a government bill.