Thaksin returns

Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai Prime Minister who was deposed by the 2006 coup, has returned to Thailand. (Since the coup, he had been in self-imposed exile, spending most of his time in England in his capacity as owner of Manchester City Football Club.) He faces two corruption charges, and was granted bail on the condition that he doesn't leave the country without permission.

Thousands of his supporters came to the airport to witness his arrival yesterday morning. He won three landslide elections in Thailand and, while the middle-classes in Bangkok regard him as corrupt, he maintains substantial support in rural provinces; the PPP, which rose from the ashes of Thaksin's TRT, won the 2007 election. As he emerged from the plane, Thaksin kissed the ground, like the Pope: he is an expert at PR and presentation, the very opposite of Samak.

Thaksin has insisted repeatedly that he has no intention of returning to active politics, though many are sceptical of this. Personally, I believe him (and actually quite like him - yes, I know, that's not a popular opinion in Bangkok). But while I doubt that he will return to parliament, he will surely continue behind-the-scenes as the main PPP sponsor and puppet-master. We have seen already how little real power Samak has within the PPP: the cabinet was essentially selected by Thaksin, against Samak's wishes, and Samak has been (unconvincingly) asserting to the media that there's no-one pulling his strings. Future backstage tension between Thaksin and Samak is a distinct possibility.