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Bangkok: For six years, Thaksin Shinawatra, the charismatic billionaire telecoms tycoon, ruled Thailand and revelled in the adulation of its rural poor and working classes. In the meantime, his family-controlled telecommunications firm, Shin Corporation, soared in market value.
Today, Thaksin is a political exile in London and owner of English Premier League football team, Manchester City, whose fans find it difficult to pronounce his family name, Shinawatra, and have thus taken to calling him "Frank", as in Sinatra.
Thaksin describes his fall as like a descent to "hell [from] heaven in one day".
It was perhaps Thaksin's break with Thai political traditions - particularly those that suggest politicians' popularity should in no way overshadow other institutions, such as the monarchy - that led to his government's ousting.
In a country where those close to the royal palace usually wield considerable political clout, Thaksin paid little respect to the traditional powerbrokers, his close allies say.
When Bangkok's middle classes were in uproar last year over his family's $1.9 billion (Dh6.9 billion) tax-free sale of Shin Corporation, royalist military leaders seized the chance to move against him.
The coup, last September, many Thais believe had the tacit endorsement of General Premier Tinsulanonda, a former army commander and prime minister, who is now the top adviser to King Bhumibol Adulayadej.
Yet Thaksin is unrepentant. "I may have been negligent," he said. "I forgot to manage power. I managed the country to gain popularity, so [my] power comes from popularity. That is 100 per cent according to the theory of democracy."
Popularity
He said the furore over his family's sale of Shin Corporation was just an excuse for the military to act. "Even if we hadn't sold Shin Corporation they would have ousted me anyway because of my popularity. They knew if we had another election there would have been another landslide [for his Thai Rak Thai party]."
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