Thailand's recent political history has been, to put it mildly, volatile. In 1997 a democratic constitution supposedly ended several decades of flirting with generals. Four years later Thaksin Shinawatra, a corrupt but competent telecoms tycoon, was elected. In 2006 he was forced out in a bloodless army coup, and skipped the country. The next year a new election brought in the burly, boisterous figure of Samak Sundaravej.
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