The remarkable rise of Rukchanok ‘Ice’ Srinork

Thailand’s most popular politician has tapped a deep well of public anger with the status quo. She grew up in a Bangkok slum. Abandoned by her parents. Raised by an informal adoptive family with little money and little affection. Her background reads like a checklist of everything that normally breaks a child: poverty, neglect, stigma. Many of her friends fell into drugs, unwed pregnancies, and crime.