Exiled Thai PM Thaksin to address second mass rally

By Chalathip Thirasoonthrakul

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Exiled former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will address another mass rally of supporters next month, the latest move in his campaign to get back into Thailand and back into power, a spokesman said on Monday.

The rally will be the second such gathering since the Supreme Court sentenced Thaksin in absentia to two years in jail in October and is likely to raise the temperature once again in a political saga that has been running for the last three years.

"He will phone in and talk about anything and everything, what injustice he has received since the 2006 coup until now," Jatuporn Prompan, an organiser of the Dec. 10 rally in Bangkok's 35,000-seat Supachalasai stadium, told Reuters.

The political struggle that has hampered economic growth and claimed three lives has been on hold for the last three days out of respect for the cremation of the king's sister, but shows no sign of reaching any conclusion.

The absence of a functional government has raised fears for the export-driven economy as a global slowdown bites.

Opponents of Thaksin, who is now thought to be in Dubai after Britain revoked his visa, said he would probably try to elicit sympathy by blaming his removal in a 2006 coup for his divorce from his wife of the last 32 years, made public at the weekend.

Thaksin's opponents and the Thai media, which has remained largely hostile since the coup, have also speculated the divorce may be a financial decision to protect the couple's assets, most of which are thought to be in his ex-wife Potjaman's name.

Nearly $2 billion has been frozen in Thaksin's Thai bank accounts since the coup. Both he and his wife have been convicted of corruption or conflict of interest offences, although they have avoided jail by fleeing the country.