Thaksin Shinawatra is undoubtedly the most controversial politician ever to become prime minister of Thailand, an oft-ignored country in Southeast Asia with a population and landmass greater than Britain or Italy. (But who besides a Thai knows this?) Elected several times in national elections deemed to be relatively fair and open, he was pushed out by a sadly misconceived military coup in 2006 and has been working out of exile in Dubai since then in effort to return.
The energetic 63-year-old telecommunications pioneer doesn't let grass grow under his feet, however, and this month has been bouncing around the United States looking for love among Thai exile groups, meeting with the usual VIPs and trying to make new friends. Except for one anti-Thaksin demonstration, it has been smooth going here in the U.S. One stop was at Loyola Marymount University, where faculty, students and administrators met him for dinner or over tea or wine.
Thaksin, though famous, was a mystery man to all of them in the sense that all they knew of this populist politician was what media has wanted them to know. Not exactly the full picture.