Thaksin self image major concern

If you have been following the news, Apparently The convicted Fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra was spotted in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and hastily departed to avoid capture. That part of the story was actually believable, but the next day what came from Thaksin’s spokesman looked to be as thick as a clogged sewer main.

Certainly Connecting the Dots could cut apart Thaksin’s reply with ease, and we will have a few jabs at it. But the bigger story is how critical Thaksin’s self image is to his under educated supporters. Based on what was said by Thaksin, he is being treated like royalty in places, and that is certainly food for the gullible.

So to quickly cover the key points, it takes about an hour to service an aircraft like the one Thaksin is using, so an over night stay was not needed. The flying time from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur is about 6 hours, and that certainly is by no means a long flight when looking at some 13 hour flights from Japan to the USA.

So the need for Thaksin to head into town and take a room simply says he had business there. Add to that Thaksin knows full well he is at risk, so it is one of those keep the motor running scenarios and he probably did not depart the aircraft until it was ready to fly again. For this turnaround, refueling is the only thing that truly needs to be done along with a quick pre-flight inspection.

The next point is why would Thaksin head to Fiji unless it was a preestablished safe base. Once it was known Thaksin was in transit, the police would be waiting for him at other places not unlike a baseball game. After all Fiji is a bit out of the way from just about everywhere.

So now it appears based on the extensive rebuttal from Thaksin about his stay in Kuala Lumpur, his self desired image to his under educated supporters may turn out to be his achilleas heel. It is very clear his untouchable arrogance is what he wants to portray to his lesser educated supporters. Once they get a taste that a significant chuck of the planet is hunting Thaksin down, it will be difficult to accept that Thaksin is a good guy and reluctantly be forced to accept that he is somehow screwing them over.

Thaksin now is starting to show he is calling the shots and not the government. Case in point the intended Birthday party in his honor that was Banned by Bangkok’s governor for inappropriate use of the Sanam Luang venue. The red shirts said they would go ahead anyway, but Thaksin called in to say no do not do it.  Although the governor was well within bounds and authority, this gives the appearance that it was Thaksin making the call to end the event and that the governors authority was meaningless.

So it is very clear Thaksin’s self image is much more key now than it has ever been before. He has clearly sorted out that for him to hold on he must be seen as god like as possible. Any negative press must quickly be squashed, and seeing there were about 4 words of spin from Thaksin for every 1 word of bad news, the effort is significant.


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