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Ousted Thaksin accuses new Thai PM of copying him
AFP - 1 hour 26 minutes ago
BANGKOK (AFP) - - Thailand's deeply-divisive former leader Thaksin Shinawatra on Sunday accused new Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva of copying his policies, as he launched an attack on his foe's first month in office.
Speaking on Thai television from an undisclosed location abroad, Thaksin accused Abhisit's government of espousing populist policies such as loans for the poor and increased social security simply to try to win over detractors.
"I am not concerned who will copy my policies, because I am more concerned about people," Thaksin said in comments broadcast on the new anti-government satellite station, Democracy Television (DTV).
"But even if it is the same policy, if the people who implement it are different people it could have a different outcome," said the twice-elected premier who was ousted in a military coup in September 2006.
"When I was in government I listened to people who really had problems ... I did not just stand at the top of the tower issuing policies."
Abhisit came to power in a parliamentary vote on December 15 after a court dissolved the Thaksin-linked ruling People Power Party (PPP), bringing an end to six months of disruptive anti-government protests.
A number of small parties and former PPP lawmakers defected to Abhisit's Democrat Party-led coalition, enabling it to narrowly win the vote and draining the exiled Thaksin of power less than a year after his allies won elections.
Thaksin was elected in 2001 and 2005, and was enormously popular with the rural and urban poor, who had previously been sidelined by politicians.
But allegations of corruption and abuse of power dogged his time in office and he made some powerful enemies in the old elites in the palace, military, and bureaucracy who felt his enormous popularity usurped some of their power.
Thailand remains deeply divided between those loyal to the ousted leader -- known as the "Red Shirts" -- and his enemies in the Bangkok-based establishment and middle classes who want to rid the kingdom of his influence.
Thaksin has spent most his time since the coup in self-imposed exile abroad as corruption cases mounted against him, and he was in October last year sentenced in absentia to two years in jail for abuse of power.
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