e central figure in the confrontation between new power and old is Thaksin himself, a charismatic business tycoon whose election as prime minister in 2001 marked the first stage of the Thai conflict. Thaksin was a dynamic and even visionary figure. He revolutionized Thai politics, creating a new majority among previously ignored and disenfranchised rural people in the north and northeast. He had a chance to go down in Thai history as the man who led his country into a new, more prosperous democratic era. But Thaksin also had a very Thai tendency to use his office for personal enrichment, and he was persuasively accused of resorting to dictatorial methods, for example, appointing relatives and cronies to key positions, thereby undermining the independence of important regulatory agencies. This gave his rivals a good reason (or, in the view of his many loyal supporters, a flimsy pretext) for resorting to a kind of mob action to get rid of him.