It was that “other side” that was Thaksin’s fatal flaw. In the early days, opposition to him consisted of wealthy businessmen in Bangkok who began to see him as a threat to their interests. But anti-Thaksin feelings rapidly grew into a genuine mass movement, consisting of journalists, many civil servants, people in the professional classes, a few labor unions, parts of the military and the police, and some members of the royal family, although they did not openly say so. Many people within this opposition had no apparent economic interest in Thaksin’s fall from power. But they came to see him as a potential elected dictator, a strongman in the Vladimir Putin mold, or perhaps comparable to Hun Sen, whose tight control of neighboring Cambodia has always been legitimized by supposedly free elections.