By Ed Cropley
BANGKOK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Billionaire. Tycoon. Populist. Crony capitalist. Autocrat.
The labels assigned by his critics to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra are many, and mostly unflattering.
But as a second probable election landslide hands one of Thailand's richest men an unprecedented grip on power, the term being bandied about most is "dictator".
For Thaksin, a self-styled "CEO premier" for whom strong government is effective government, the jibe is undeserved.
"Where in the world is a single-party government called a dictatorship? What's wrong with it when people have faith in me?" he told supporters at a mass rally in central Bangkok at the climax of his 2005 campaign.
Love him or loathe him, nobody can avoid the fact that Thaksin, who in January became the first elected prime minister in Thailand's coup-prone history to finish a full four-year term, is here to stay.
Even his harshest critics concede the 56-year-old has managed to make good on most of the populist platform of free health care and handouts for the rural masses that swept him to power in 2001.
With an uncanny ability to milk successes and slide out of messes, as well as a buzzing economy that has shaken off the impact of SARS, bird flu, violence in the Muslim south and the Dec. 26 tsunami, his popularity has rarely dipped below the stratosphere.
LAW AND ORDER
Born into a family of ethnic Chinese silk merchants in 1949 in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin became a policeman in 1973 before winning a state scholarship to study for a masters degree in criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University.
He earned a doctorate in the same subject from Sam Houston State University in Texas five years later and then taught at the Thai Police Cadet Academy, a vocation that many say explains his tough stance on law and order.
However, he quit the force in 1987 to go into business, establishing a small computer dealership with his wife Potjaman that started selling hardware to the Thai police force.
The company evolved into present day Shin Corp, a telecoms conglomerate now worth $2.6 billion on the Thai bourse, with interests ranging from mobile phones to satellites, the Internet and the media.
Wealthy beyond his dreams -- Forbes magazine estimates his family fortune at $1.4 billion -- Thaksin resigned from every position in his telecoms empire before becoming foreign minister in 1994.
"My family was already financially secure and my business was in good hands, so I thought why worry? It's about time to pay a little back to my country," he said of his decision to move into politics.
HISTORY MAKER
His first term in office made history in Thailand, as Thaksin worked a new 1997 constitution to his advantage to cement an unprecedented grip on power in a nation previously used only to military dictatorships or elected coalitions.
But his rise and rise has not been without controversy.
A corruption probe dogged his early days as PM until he convinced investigators he only made an "honest mistake" in failing to declare millions of dollars of shares transferred to his domestic staff -- including a maid, security guard and chauffeur.
His 2003 "war on drugs", in which 2,500 people died, boosted his image as a no-nonsense crime-buster but sparked outrage from human rights groups, who said he was riding roughshod over civil liberties and the rule of law.
His response to renewed violence in the Muslim far south dismayed those same critics, who accused him of giving the army carte blanche against militants thought to be reviving a Muslim separatist rebellion dormant since the 1980s.
In one of the worst incidents in 12 months of violence, 78 Muslim protesters died of suffocation after being stacked for hours like logs in the back of army trucks.
Unapologetic in the face of worldwide Muslim outrage, Thaksin suggested many of the victims succumbed because they were weakened by daylight fasting in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
It is with comments such as these, his opponents say, that Thaksin exposes himself in his true light.
"Every time Thaksin says he is not a dictator, one gets goose bumps," Kavi Chongkittavorn of the Nation newspaper wrote in a January editorial. "Every time he says he is just following the rules of democracy, he violates its very spirit."
BANGKOK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Billionaire. Tycoon. Populist. Crony capitalist. Autocrat.
The labels assigned by his critics to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra are many, and mostly unflattering.
But as a second probable election landslide hands one of Thailand's richest men an unprecedented grip on power, the term being bandied about most is "dictator".
For Thaksin, a self-styled "CEO premier" for whom strong government is effective government, the jibe is undeserved.
"Where in the world is a single-party government called a dictatorship? What's wrong with it when people have faith in me?" he told supporters at a mass rally in central Bangkok at the climax of his 2005 campaign.
Love him or loathe him, nobody can avoid the fact that Thaksin, who in January became the first elected prime minister in Thailand's coup-prone history to finish a full four-year term, is here to stay.
Even his harshest critics concede the 56-year-old has managed to make good on most of the populist platform of free health care and handouts for the rural masses that swept him to power in 2001.
With an uncanny ability to milk successes and slide out of messes, as well as a buzzing economy that has shaken off the impact of SARS, bird flu, violence in the Muslim south and the Dec. 26 tsunami, his popularity has rarely dipped below the stratosphere.
LAW AND ORDER
Born into a family of ethnic Chinese silk merchants in 1949 in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin became a policeman in 1973 before winning a state scholarship to study for a masters degree in criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University.
He earned a doctorate in the same subject from Sam Houston State University in Texas five years later and then taught at the Thai Police Cadet Academy, a vocation that many say explains his tough stance on law and order.
However, he quit the force in 1987 to go into business, establishing a small computer dealership with his wife Potjaman that started selling hardware to the Thai police force.
The company evolved into present day Shin Corp, a telecoms conglomerate now worth $2.6 billion on the Thai bourse, with interests ranging from mobile phones to satellites, the Internet and the media.
Wealthy beyond his dreams -- Forbes magazine estimates his family fortune at $1.4 billion -- Thaksin resigned from every position in his telecoms empire before becoming foreign minister in 1994.
"My family was already financially secure and my business was in good hands, so I thought why worry? It's about time to pay a little back to my country," he said of his decision to move into politics.
HISTORY MAKER
His first term in office made history in Thailand, as Thaksin worked a new 1997 constitution to his advantage to cement an unprecedented grip on power in a nation previously used only to military dictatorships or elected coalitions.
But his rise and rise has not been without controversy.
A corruption probe dogged his early days as PM until he convinced investigators he only made an "honest mistake" in failing to declare millions of dollars of shares transferred to his domestic staff -- including a maid, security guard and chauffeur.
His 2003 "war on drugs", in which 2,500 people died, boosted his image as a no-nonsense crime-buster but sparked outrage from human rights groups, who said he was riding roughshod over civil liberties and the rule of law.
His response to renewed violence in the Muslim far south dismayed those same critics, who accused him of giving the army carte blanche against militants thought to be reviving a Muslim separatist rebellion dormant since the 1980s.
In one of the worst incidents in 12 months of violence, 78 Muslim protesters died of suffocation after being stacked for hours like logs in the back of army trucks.
Unapologetic in the face of worldwide Muslim outrage, Thaksin suggested many of the victims succumbed because they were weakened by daylight fasting in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
It is with comments such as these, his opponents say, that Thaksin exposes himself in his true light.
"Every time Thaksin says he is not a dictator, one gets goose bumps," Kavi Chongkittavorn of the Nation newspaper wrote in a January editorial. "Every time he says he is just following the rules of democracy, he violates its very spirit."