Controversial Thaksin glad-handing in Tokyo

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's visit to Tokyo last week may well have been a case of blatant political maneuvering, but the 62-year-old was in unusually forthcoming form when fielding questions from the media in Yurakucho.

Shinawatra was surprisingly playful for a man under a constant cloud, joking that while some politicians have been known to own the media, "the media can sometimes own politicians."

The fact that Shinawatra received a visa to visit Japan caused a stir that he casually shrugged off as non-newsworthy.

"The previous Thai government tried to ask Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for me but every time it has been turned down,” he said.

Rule of law

Shinawatra was ousted after five years in office by the Thai army while he was in New York at a United Nations summit. He was subsequently sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for abuse of state power; he has been living in exile ever since, and is currently based in Dubai.

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So, while stating that the rule of law is vital for the future of Thailand, was he happy to include himself in that?

"This is the fruit of the poisoned tree," he said, gnomically. "When the tree is poisoned, the fruit must be poisoned as well."

When quizzed by an Italian reporter on his ownership of Thai media, inevitable comparisons to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi raised smiles. "We may have some similarities," joked Shinawatra, "but we have some differences too."

One of those may be in the way Shinawatra refers to the mafia in Thailand as “cats.”

Taming the mob

"I'm very good at changing the name of mafia," he claimed, before elaborating that they are merely animals to him, and his skill is "to tame them."

Much of the interest in Shinawatra's next move centers on the appointment of his younger sister, Yingluck, on August 5 as the first female prime minister of Thailand.

• More on CNNGo: Yingluck one of the ‘world’s most powerful women’

Asked how often they consult each other, the former prime minister was frank. "I act like an encyclopedia and she is free to open [it],” he said. “[But] she can close it any time.

"When my mother passed away she asked me to take care of her, so she is like my eldest daughter somehow," he said of the sister 18 years his junior.

Yingluck free of 'interference'

"I sent her to do a master’s degree in the United States and after she came to work in my company I trained her how to work with people,” he added. “We are in contact all the time as family members.”

"That's normal, but she has her own leadership to run the country without my interference at all," he continued.

Asked how he felt about the state of Japanese politics, Shinawatra pointed out that since his term in office, when Junichiro Koizumi was his counterpart in Japan, both countries have had five more prime ministers.

Sympathy vote

"You are going to have the [sixth] one next week, but I don't know who," he joked, before adding: "The difference is that in Japan it's a true democratic process, but in Thailand it's not always. We had five elections and of those five, our side won all."

He did show sympathy for Japan's leaders, though. "In almost every country, the politicians have to listen to government officials and in some countries they are very strong,” he said.

“But the world is changing fast and democracy is slow to change. The private sector can change faster and the citizens have access to information worldwide so they want to see the change quicker," he concluded.