Over 1999-2000, Thaksin had given the impression he would be sympathetic to NGOs and rural protest groups, He had talked to them directly, adopted some of their ideas and vocabulary. Many cooperated and supported him at the 2001 election. On the day after his election victory, he visited the Assembly of the Poor’s protest encampment on the pavement outside Government House and ate lunch with them for the benefit of the media. He agreed to set up committees to solve the protester’s problems. Once these mechanisms were established, the protest camp was dissolved. On the Assembly’s major issue over the Pak Mun Dam, Thaksin ordered a temporary opening of the dam’s sluice gates and commissioned research to evaluate the dam’s impact on the local ecology and fisheries.