Thai PM to take back control of government

BANGKOK - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will formally take back the reins of power today by chairing a cabinet meeting two months after announcing he was taking a political break, a minister said.

His return could add street protests to the political chaos which has prevailed since an inconclusive April 2 snap general election was declared unlawful, anti-Thaksin campaigners said.

"The Prime Minister will return to the head table at the cabinet meeting to discuss new measures to stimulate the economy," Transport Minister Pongsak Raktapongpisal told a Bangkok radio on Monday.

The measures would include a plan for new underground railway routes in Bangkok as one item to be considered to keep the economy going until a new government was in place, he said.

Thaksin, who met security chiefs on the restive Muslim south and cabinet ministers on the economy on Monday, returned to his desk on Friday, but had not said whether he was taking power back from a deputy to whom he had handed control of government.

But Thaksin, who bowed to months of street protests by announcing he would not be prime minister for the third time after the April election, said at the weekend it was time he got back to work with no new election date yet set.

Back to work

"Yes, I will have to work because there are several months before the election, otherwise the country will deteriorate," Thaksin told reporters after dozens of people gathered at his office to demand a new war on drugs.

Thaksin launched a controversial war on drugs in 2003 in which 2,500 people were killed in a campaign which outraged human rights groups but was immensely popular in rural Thailand where Thaksin's power base lies.

The rights groups alleged that most of those killed were shot by police, but the government said they were attributable mostly to drug dealers killing each other.

Slowing economic growth, separatist violence in the largely Muslim south and a resurgence of drug use required Thaksin to get back to work, government spokesman Surapong Suebwonglee said.

"The current circumstances require leadership and that is a key factor in the prime minister's change of mind," Surapong told reporters.

The government has not set a new election date, although the Election Commission has proposed it be held in late October.

Surapong urged Thaksin's foes, whose months-long campaign against a leader they accused of corruption and abuse of power persuaded him to call the snap election, not to resume rallies which could undermine efforts to sort out the political mess.

But the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which led the campaign, said if Thaksin did return to power, they would resume their protests against him after celebrations for the 60th anniversary of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej in June.

"Our stand remains the same that we don't want Thaksin in politics," PAD spokesman Suriyasai Katasila told Reuters.

"After the anniversary, we will call key leaders of anti-Thaksin networks to map out our strategy against him."

- REUTERS