BAAN TON TAN (Thailand): Graft scandals and mudslinging from a former business ally have eroded urban support for Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, but the self-styled “CEO premier” remains as strong as ever in the rural heartlands.

Ten months after a record election landslide for his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party, polls in Bangkok are suggesting 40 per cent approval ratings for Thaksin, who has also been labelled the person with the most “disappointing behaviour” of 2005.

But away from the educated classes of the capital chattering away in air-conditioned coffee bars it is a very different story, with surveys showing up to 60 per cent of rural voters still giving Thaksin and his government the thumbs up.

“Thaksin has given villagers so much,” said Somjit Yakul, 69, a politician in Baan Ton Tan, a sleepy village 100 km north of Bangkok, where Thaksin’s cheap rural credit schemes and public health initiatives have many beneficiaries.

“Even if he dissolved parliament today, Thai Rak Thai would win again here tomorrow,” he said.

Thaksin scooped up 377 of 500 parliamentary seats in February as he became the first elected prime minister in Thailand’s coup-prone history to win a second consecutive term.

Key to the victory was his delivery on many first term campaign pledges to reduce poverty in the countryside, where around 70 per cent of the population still lives and agriculture or cottage industries are the main employers.

Cheap government loans of 1 million baht ($24,000) to 77,000 villages nationwide met with understandable cries of corruption and cronyism, but villagers say the cash nevertheless enabled them to get small businesses off the ground.

“Yes, I like him. Why wouldn’t I?,” said 67-year-old Sanit, who borrowed from the fund for her handicraft business. “I don’t know why others don’t.”

But critics wonder how much more populist largesse Thailand can afford given the strength of world oil prices and their impact on economic growth, which slowed to around 4.5 per cent in 2005 from 6 per cent in the previous year.

In Bangkok for instance, the government is struggling to convince voters it has enough money to build a promised 300-km rail system to solve the sprawling city’s traffic problems.

The capital’s Nation newspaper was highly critical of recent “international development partnership” overtures by Thaksin to foreign diplomats, saying it was clear evidence the government was short of cash.

“They are watching the spectacle of a flamboyant big spender having been taken down to a status barely above that of a beggar,” columnist Sopon Onkgara wrote.

On top of this comes media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul, who is becoming a constant thorn in the side of his former business associate with his weekly anti-government roadshows around the country.

Cashing in on growing public distrust, the firebrand businessman has accused Thaksin of a litany of abuses of power, from cronyism to corruption to undermining King Bhumibol Adulyadej — an extremely serious allegation.

Besides furious denials, Thaksin is responding with a gimmick showing clearly where his priorities lie — a two-week reality TV-style appearance in a remote northeastern village, certain to to shore up his “man of the people” credentials.—Reuters