His comments in recent media interviews notwithstanding, Thailand's deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has sent mixed signals on his political intentions. On the one hand, he insists repeatedly that he has had enough of Thai politics and wants to spend his time with family and charity activities. On the other hand, Thaksin has staged a political offensive with personal comments in the media and views expressed through his representatives at home and abroad. He has also enlisted the services of lobbyists and PR firms, taking the Council for National Security and the interim government to task for undermining Thai democracy and mismanaging the economy.

Thaksin, in short, has been a constant source of far-reaching political ripples at home, even while he has been abroad. His words and deeds, in the past as in the present, are always fluid and elastic, never set in stone, contingent on changing circumstances. A crafty tactician with thick manual of manoeuvres, Thaksin is a wily agenda setter, who likely would not know how to quit Thai politics even if he wanted to. His eventual return to Thailand, not as a mere citizen but as a political force to be reckoned with, is attributable to four key factors.

First, Thaksin is a monopolist at heart, accustomed to winning. His track record in business and later in politics portrays a man who rose to the top of his game time and again ahead of fierce competitors. His many biographies paint a picture of a man on a mission, from modest but not humble origins, to eventually taking over the mantle of Thai leadership. His nature is not to accept defeat unless it is forced upon him, as when he ditched his failed computers business for a lucrative mobile phone concession in the late 1980s, or more recently, in the military coup last September.

Even in defeat, Thaksin has always maximised the opportunities that come his way. He does not walk away from setbacks, hands down, in complete resignation, but always fights back. For this reason, he continues to represent a potent and unprecedented political phenomenon, even while out of Thailand.

Second, Thaksin commands immense resources. He maintains a huge coffer from the sale of his family's telecommunications empire early last year, which netted him a whopping US$1.9 billion. In addition, Thaksin is a unique and consummate Thai political actor, who can count on an army of contacts, informants, sympathisers, and loyalists in many echelons of the police, the military, the bureaucracy, the private sector, not to mention the rural masses and urban poor who voted his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party into office in January 2001 with two successful re-elections in February 2005 and April 2006. The unrivalled resources at his disposal will encourage him to stay in the game.

Third, and perhaps most important, Thaksin is motivated by conviction. This is a trait his opponents and sworn enemies like to sweep under the carpet. While he is justifiably deplored for corruption and abuse of power, Thaksin sees his pro-poor populist platform as a confluence of innovative ideas to remake Thailand into a more egalitarian society, thereby extirpating its apparent neo-feudal underpinnings.

Although Thaksin has a serial knack for betraying his own words, as evidenced by his asset concealment trial in 2001, he sees himself not as a traitor or dictator, but as a conqueror of Thai democracy and as a hero of the Thai people. He is more likely to go out as martyr than as a quitter. His cause and self-righteousness are so magnetic that his inner circle of core supporters have not deserted him, nor has the TRT party disbanded in spite of his absence. Key TRT factions have bolted in the aftermath of the September 19 coup, but they could just as quickly regroup behind Thaksin if circumstances change to allow his return to the political fray. Thaksin still commands followers because of what he and his cadres stand for. They harbour a collective belief in Thaksin's grand ambition to remake Thailand, rationalising all the conflict of interests, cronyism, corruption, and abuses of power as justifiable collateral rewards and expedient means to justify Thailand's inevitable destination. 

Finally, Thaksin may well be counting on the ineptitude of his political conquerors who ousted him in the coup. This has been the murkiest and most ambivalent coup in Thai political annals. After more than four months of rule by the military junta, the self-styled Council for National Security, and the government of caretaker Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, the Thai political scene remains as unsettled, a throwback to the part of 2006 when Thaksin was trying to outflank and outmanoeuvre his Bangkok-based street opponents. The coup makers have unintentionally created the conditions for Thaksin to make his comeback.

They have been forced to respond to Thaksin's accusations and criticisms of their post-coup mismanagement. Their domestic media gag order was rendered irrelevant by Thaksin's media comments, which were reported widely in the Thai press. The appointed government's policy vacillations have dented investor confidence and undermined the credibility and legitimacy of both the ruling generals and the Surayud cabinet. As Thaksin heckles them from abroad, the CNS and the Surayud government remain on the defensive. Thaksin has not made a come back only because prevailing circumstances are unfavourable, not because the coup makers say so.

 In view of Thaksin's ability to generate such discomfort for the men in uniform and destabilise the government even from afar, the CNS and the Surayud administration must get their act together quickly, as the sheer force, personality and aura of their nemesis will almost certainly bring him back into the fray before long. Thaksin has been sidelined from Thai politics. But he should not yet be counted out. As long as he remains as a viable political force to be reckoned with, the Thai political drama that began last year has yet to run its course.