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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Pro-Thaksin protesters ring Thai Parliament
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-29 14:12 Thaksin and his backers retain strong support in rural areas but have lost ground recently as former loyalists defected to join Abhisit's government, behind which the powerful military and monarchist figures have thrown their weight.
Local media has speculated that Thaksin, once Thailand's richest man, has also taken heavy losses in the current financial crisis and no longer has the seemingly bottomless purse to support, and motivate, his backers. Abhisit, the nation's third prime minister in four months, vowed in his inaugural address to reunite the deeply divided nation and to restore Thailand's tourist-friendly image. The eight-day airport shutdown battered the country's essential tourism industry and stranded more than 300,000 travelers. Thailand's recent political convulsions began in August when anti-Thaksin protesters took over the seat of government to demand that Thaksin's allies resign. Since then, a series of court rulings have resulted in the ouster of two Thaksin-allied prime ministers. In October, street clashes with police outside Parliament left two people dead and hundreds injured. Military leaders accused Thaksin of corruption and ousted him in September 2006, keeping him in exile and controlling the country for an interim period until new elections in December 2007 brought Thaksin's allies back into power. He returned to Thailand in February 2008 to face corruption charges but later fled into exile again and was convicted in absentia.
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