Jul 26, 2009, 11:08 GMT
Bangkok - Fugitive Thai former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra treated his supporters to wine, food and song on his birthday Sunday, crooning about his political comeback in a video clip broadcast to his followers.
'Go ahead and step on me,' sang Thaksin in his birthday song titled 'I will come back.'
'I'll wait for the day the sky changes its colours. I have become a wanderer, sleeping in different places like a criminal,' sang the ex-premier who was ousted by a coup in 2006 and faces a two-year jail sentence in Thailand should he return.
Thaksin has been living in self-imposed exile since jumping bail in August 2008, travelling the world using various passports acquired after losing his Thai passport in April this year.
Despite his fugitive status, Thaksin remains a key player in Thai politics as the main decision-maker and financier behind the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), the so-called 'red shirts,' and the Puea Thai opposition party.
His supporters on Sunday organized various events nationwide to publicize Thaksin's 60th birthday and keep him in the political limelight.
On Sunday morning thousands of Thais, sporting red shirts, gave alms to Buddhist monks and attended prayers at temples to mark the birthday of Thaksin.
The UDD organized events to celebrate Thaksin's birthday, including the baking of 2,492 cakes to mark the year of his birth according to the the Buddhist calendar, and the signing of a 2,492- foot-long birthday card, which they hope will make the Guinness Book of Records.
In Bangkok, a birthday banquet at the Royal Dragon Restaurant was scheduled to be held Sunday evening with 350 tables and about 3,500 guests for Thaksin's relatives and political allies, who will be treated to the former telecommunications tycoon's 'special surprise.'
Similar events were organized at Nonthaburi and Lopburi.
In an interview Saturday, Thaksin bragged that he had stolen the limelight from current Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva, his arch-political rival.
But Abhisit, when asked on his Sunday TV show about the hubbub over Thaksin's birthday, only offered some religious advice to the ex-leader.
'I would like to say 'if you are enlightened and understand dharma, you will be much happier,'' said Abhisit.
Dharma is the Buddhist belief in reaping what one sows, good or bad, either in this life or the next.
On April 11-12, red-shirted Thaksin supporters raided the venue of a South-East Asian summit at Pattaya beach resort, forcing Abhisit to cancel the event.
Thaksin, through call-ins, urged his followers to stage a 'people's revolution' at the time and was widely blamed for instigating the resulting violence and damage to Thailand's reputation.
The mayhem prompted a crackdown on UDD followers in Bangkok, and has shifted domestic security to the hands of the politically- powerful army rather than the police, many of whom support Thaksin, himself a former police officer.
In 1980s and 1990s Thaksin became a billionaire off publicly- awarded telecommunication concessions in new services such as beepers and mobile phones.
His January 2006 decision to sell his family's holdings in the Shin Corp in a tax-free deal arguably marked the beginning of his political downfall, turning the Bangkok-based middle and upper classes against him.
On September 19, 2006, he was ousted by a military coup.
In July 2008, the Bangkok Criminal Court found Thaksin's then-wife Potjaman, guilty of tax evasion and sentenced her to three years in jail, prompting the couple to flee.
And in October the Supreme Court for Political Office Holders found Thaksin guilty of abuse of power for allowing his wife to successfully bid on a plot of prime Bangkok land at a public auction in 2003, when he was still prime minister.
He was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail and bailed to launch an appeal before the deadline.
Another court case was launched earlier this month to determine whether Thaksin illegally obtained some 2 billion dollars in frozen bank accounts in Thailand from the Shin Corp sale.
Despite his fugitive status, Thaksin remains beloved among Thailand's rural poor who were on the receiving end of his populist policies such as cheap health care and housing.
His ongoing popularity was demonstrated last month in two by-elections in the north-east which were won by pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party candidates.
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