Word: samak
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...Thai voter who longs for the return of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, then Samak Sundaravej is your man. An acid-tongued, fire-breathing ultra-conservative who brands his opponents communists and "street gangsters," the 72-year-old former Bangkok governor is running in the Dec. 23 national election on a platform the rural masses find irresistible: as he unabashedly declares, "I'm Thaksin's nominee." Samak, the nominal leader of the People Power Party (PPP), has promised that if elected he'll bring back Thaksin and his populist policies, like cheap credit and debt moratoriums. Samak has vowed...
...Korn Chatikavanij, the party's deputy secretary general. "Our record in government is solid." Democrats are also banking on Abhisit Vejjajiva, 43, their fresh-faced, Oxford-educated leader. Abhisit is clearly Prime Ministerial material, but remains untested in high public office and is said to lack the common touch. Samak dismisses Abhisit as an "unripe mango," but comparative youth could be an advantage in a Cretaceous...
...leads the next government, that homecoming is assured - Samak has promised to pardon Thaksin and his ex-TRT colleagues. How the military will react is unclear. General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who led the 2006 coup and has since appointed himself a Deputy Prime Minister, has promised to "accept the people's judgment." After campaigning began, the military announced that it needed nearly $9 billion over 10 years to modernize and buy new weapons, which reads very much like the price of its loyalty to the next government...
...bygones," he says. "We should not fail the Thai people by arguing and quarreling." Noppadon says his party has adopted "a less confrontational style." If so, nobody has told PPP pit bull Chalerm Yubamrung, who has publicly vowed to "execute" Thaksin's foes. Chalerm, who is campaigning alongside Samak, covets the post of interior minister and, if elected, promises to revive Thaksin's notorious "war on drugs," in which more than 2,600 people were killed...
...helped keep him in the headlines back in soccer-crazy Thailand. While it is illegal for Thaksin to use his wealth to finance PPP activities, his own future is intertwined with the party: he will need its political clout to fight the corruption charges against him and his family. Samak has promised to lift the five-year ban imposed on Thaksin and 110 other former TRT members...