Fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra will follow in the legal footsteps of her brother Thaksin if she returns from exile but will not receive preferential treatment, according to the controversial lawyer for the Shinawatra family.

Hope is rising that Thailand will return to civilian rule with a general election next February, more than four years after the military staged a coup in May 2014. But the country now has a younger hawkish Army general, whose father was also a junta leader 27 years ago.