Deposed Thai PM's wife 'staying to protect his millions'

Family members of deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra are still in Thailand amid speculation that they stayed behind to protect his vast assets against possible confiscation by the country’s new military rulers.

A spokesman for the military ruling group said today that Thaksin’s wife Pojamarn and two of his children remained in the capital Bangkok.

“They all have the basic right to stay and lead normal lives here,” Lt Gen Palanggoon Klaharn told The Associated Press. “They are living in freedom and without any disturbance, control or restrictions,”

The Nation newspaper speculated today that Pojamarn, known to have wielded a powerful influence on her husband, stayed behind to protect some of the family fortune.

Thaksin remains in London with his third child, a daughter.

A source close to Thaksin’s family said his son Phantongtae, 26, was still living in the family residence while his wife and the second daughter were at a “safe house” in an air force compound under the protection of Kongsak Watana, the former interior minister and onetime air force commander.

The source said Pojamarn would remain in Thailand until at least next week, when her daughter took her final examination at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

Telecoms tycoon-turned politician Thaksin built up a multi-million business empire over the past few decades and its fortunes soared during his five years in office, with critics accusing him of massive corruption.

The coup leaders who toppled Thaksin on Tuesday have appointed a nine-man anti-corruption commission to investigate massive corruption in the fallen government and pressed ahead with efforts to purge the regime of the former leader’s influence.

They also got their first taste of popular dissent when about 100 protesters defied a ban on public gatherings yesterday to denounce the army’s coup as undemocratic.

A spokesman for the military ruling group reaffirmed its “intention to bring back peace and order” by amending the constitution. The coup makers scrapped the 1997 charter when they took power.

Lt Gen Palanggoon Klaharn, speaking for the military’s ruling Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy, said an effort would be made to work out “loopholes” in the constitution.

The 1997 document was supposed to usher in democratic reforms, but instead allowed Thaksin to accrue great powers for himself.

Yesterday’s protesters, who dubbed themselves the “19 September Network against the Coup d’Etat” condemned the takeover, saying in a statement that “there is no such thing as building democracy through destroying democracy at the same time”.

The demonstrators, meeting outside Bangkok’s most upmarket shopping mall, Siam Paragon, gathered in small groups of five or less to skirt new military restrictions on larger public gatherings.

There was no violence, and no arrests, according to a protest leader and police.

The coup, carried out while Thaksin was abroad, met no open resistance and was generally welcomed by the public in Bangkok, which had been drawn to a campaign earlier this year seeking Thaksin’s resignation for alleged corruption and abuse of power.

The military announced it would hand over power in two weeks to an interim civilian prime minister, and that a new election would be held by October next year.

But it has meanwhile abrogated the constitution, assumed all security, administrative and legislative powers and placed restrictions on the media, instructing news organisations to co-operate in maintaining order and to “restrict, control, stop or destroy information” that could “affect the constitutional monarchy”.

Army spokesman Palanggoon claimed overwhelming public support for the coup and said the military authorities “would like to urge those who have different political opinions to halt their activities for the time being”.

The new military rulers are also searching for a respected civilian figure to be interim prime minister.

Media speculation has focused on several possible candidates, including Supachai Panitchpadki, who heads the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Supreme Administrative Court president Ackaratorn Chularat; Pridiyathorn Devakula, who heads Thailand’s central bank, and a former finance minister who opposed Thaksin, Chatumongkol Sonakul.