Ousted Thai premier Thaksin Shinwawatra names nemesis

Mar 27, 2009, 14:28 GMT

Bangkok - Fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinwatara on Friday named the current privy council president as his main political nemesis and a plotter of the coup that toppled him from power in 2006.

Thaksin, in a live video broadcast to thousands of this followers in Bangkok, named Prem Tinsulanonda, the current Privy Council president and Thai prime minister from 1980 to 1988 as the main 'powerful' person behind the September 19, 2006, coup that brought Thaksin down.

Thaksin, who has been living in self-exile since August, last year, denied accusations that he had been disloyal to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand's much revered 81-year-old monarch.

Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications entrepreneur who was prime minister between 2001 to 2006, has accused several members of the privy council that advises King Bhumibol of being behind the coup that overthrew him, but he had stopped short of saying the king himself was involved.

Under Thailand's constitutional monarchy the king must remain above politics.

On Friday, Thaksin insisted that neither the king nor Queen Sirikit had been involved in his downfall.

Prem has repeatedly denied any involvement with the 2006 coup, as have all other privy councillors.

Three years after the coup Thaksin still plays a powerful, although diminished role in Thai politics, which he arguably monopolized during his two-term premiership.

Although banned from politics for five years by a tribunal ruling in May, 2007, and facing a two-year jail term for abuse of power should he return to Thailand, Thaksin's huge fortune helped the pro-Thaksin People Power Party win the election of December 23, 2007.

He is also known to be a financier of the Red Shirts movement, which on Thursday mobilized about 25,000 protesters to bring down the government of current Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Abhisit became prime minister in December, 2008, after a Constituion Court ruling dissolved the People Power Party.

Abhisit leads the Democrat Party, which was in the opposition during Thaksin's premiership and ranks as his main opponent along with the military and other conservative forces.

Thaksin, who was once worth more than 2 billion dollars, added populist policies to Thailand's traditional system of vote buying, earning himself a huge following among the urban and rural poor.

He eventually antagonized the Bangkok middle class and so-called political elite with his self-serving economic policies and dictatorial tendancies, leading to the coup of 2006.