United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship
The "Lao Isan" people are aware of their Lao ethnic origin, but Isan has been incorporated as a territory into the modern Thai state through over one hundred years of administrative and bureaucratic reforms, educational policy, and government media. Despite this, since the election of Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister in the 2001 Thai general election, the "Lao Isan" identity has reemerged, and the "Lao Isan" are now the main ethnolinguistic group involved in the pro-Thaksin "Red Shirt movement" of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship. Several Thai prime ministers have come from the region.