Thaksin’s populist leadership challenged the monarchy’s claim to be the sole focus
of political loyalty. It threatened the ability of key sections of the middle class to
influence politics – businessmen through money, bureaucrats through position and
tradition, and media and intellectuals through command of public space. It promised
to replace Thailand’s plural, managed democracy with something akin to a
personalised one-party regime. Thaksin’s populism was thus a key factor in
assembling the support that persuaded the military to undertake a manoeuvre which
had generally been counter-productive for its own interests over the prior quarter-century.