Under the orders of the armed forces high command, and with a mandate for action from inside Thailand's secretive royal establishment, elite military units moved briskly to dismember the electorally successful government of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

It was a brazen, old-fashioned military intervention. What the coup plotters feared most was Thaksin's capacity to establish a parallel powerbase independent of the palace and military. Within hours of the coup, the Thaksin government was history. Five years later, that coup must be judged a failure.

The plotters misapprehended the popular mood and wrongly assumed that die-hard Thaksin supporters would shift loyalties. Millions of what were once famously fickle Thai voters have now pledged their ballots to Thaksin and his proxies for four elections in a row.

On Sunday, most electorates across northern and north-eastern Thailand endorsed the former prime minister. Some constituencies in Bangkok's suburbs and the surrounding provinces also fell to the Thaksin side.

This time it is his sister and proxy, Yingluck Shinawatra, who claims victory to become Thailand's first female prime minister. She is also the country's best chance for a workable reconciliation among its fractious elites.

Yingluck's government will control at least 260 of the 500 seats in parliament, and, with coalition parties, that number could approach 300. There are good reasons for anticipating that this dominant electoral performance may buttress the country's longer-term political stability.

For a start, the result sends a loud message to those who have invested so much in trying to sideline Thaksin. Yingluck's showing at the polls repudiates military and palace meddling in political affairs. It will be an implacably brave, but also unreasonably foolhardy, military commander who contemplates another coup under these conditions. There is no appetite for further political violence.

In the wake of the government crackdown on pro-Thaksin street protests in April and May 2010, then prime minister Abhisit was tarnished by the blood on his hands. His reputation as a moderate political operator was irrevocably damaged and his Democrat Party's lacklustre election result - it won about 160 seats - has been attributed by some analysts to simmering anger about protest deaths.

With Abhisit's inability to persuade the Thai people of his merit, it is clear the violent events of 2010 will reverberate for many years. Under these conditions reconciliation will not be easy.

Compromise will naturally be required from all sides, but the most significant recalibrations will be asked of those powerful factions within the palace and the military who have spent recent years trying to obliterate Thaksin's political machine.

But hatred for Thaksin is conspicuous in parts of Thai society. As prime minister he was no saint. His murderous campaigns against drug-dealers, incompetent handling of communal violence in southern Thailand and notoriety for blurring personal commercial gain and public policy provide fodder for his many critics. In 2008 he was convicted of corruption and sentenced to two years' jail. As a footloose exile he has not served a day behind bars.

However, Sunday's election result could offer a positive change of direction.

At the elite level, there are early indications of wheeling and dealing between Thaksin and his opponents in the military and palace. Any such negotiations are helped by Yingluck's cautious and considered public statements. There has been no fiery rhetoric or call for retribution.

Her public moderation and apparent flair for elite diplomacy may lessen the anxieties of the powerbrokers in the palace and the military; many dread the risk of payback. But what they fear most is losing control of the royal succession. In the waning years of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 65-year reign, tremendous effort has been expended to guarantee that particular factions are well positioned to manage palace politics.

Thaksin's potential to meddle in the succession may be partly to blame for the 2006 coup. His appetite for becoming an alternative kingmaker marked him out as somebody with uniquely disruptive prospects.

Palace and military powerbrokers will now seek assurances that Prime Minister Yingluck and her government will never threaten highly sensitive succession arrangements.

Some may still worry that Thaksin and his sister cannot be trusted. Republican strains among their supporters, which are treasonous under Thailand's strict lese majeste law, could prove volatile.

Palace and military factions will also struggle to accept any diminution of their power or status. Under these circumstances Thailand faces a precarious future, wedged awkwardly between democratic process and reactionary impulses. It is now Yingluck's job to balance the interests within her victorious political party with the interests of the country as a whole.

**Dr Nicholas Farrelly has researched Thai politics and society for the past decade. He works in the Australian National University's college of Asia and the Pacific.