Thaksin's new party picks rightwinger as leader

BANGKOK, Aug 24 (Reuters) Supporters of ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra today picked a pugnacious conservative who has backed coups in the past to lead their new party into general elections promised for December.

Samak Sundaravej, 72, a former minister and Bangkok governor, will lead People's Power, until recently a fringe party but now boasting 270 members of Thaksin's disbanded Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party.

Samak, elected Bangkok governor in a landslide in 2000 but unpopular when he left the post four years later, told reporters after winning the leadership in an 80-33 vote that the People's Power party would fight ''military dictatorship''.

''I won't answer your question whether I am a Thaksin nominee, but I've decided to return to politics to strengthen this party and to resurrect democracy,'' said Samak, who ran a radio campaign against pro-democracy student activists in the mid-1970s.

He supported a bloody crackdown on them in October 1976 which sent thousands of students -- some later leading members of Thai Rak Thai and now of People's Power -- to join the communist insurgency in the jungles.

Samak became a Thaksin ally last year as Bangkok's middle classes started a street campaign against him, and his election as People's Power leader showed he and the former leftists had a common enemy in the military.

The military, which ousted Thaksin last September, accused him of presiding over rampant corruption and showing disrespect to revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a charge Samak said Thaksin was not guilty of.

''I am always loyal to the monarchy, protecting the royal family, especially during the communist suppression when I was on the same side as the military,'' said Samak, who also hosts a cooking show on television.

ALLIANCES FORMING The path to elections expected on Dec 23 was opened by the approval last Sunday of a constitution drafted by a panel appointed by the military in a referendum where the ''Nos'', seen as a vote for Thaksin, amounted to a hefty 41 per cent.

King Bhumibol signed it on Friday, putting into effect a constitution designed to prevent the re-emergence of a strong one-party government like Thaksin's and seen likely to mean a return to the revolving coalitions of the 1990s.

The election campaign is shaping up to be a race among three political groupings.

There is an alliance of anti-Thaksin parties led by the Democrat Party, Thailand's oldest, and another led by People's Power, neither likely to win an absolute majority.

Then there is a group of parties, some including former Thaksin members of parliament, floating in the middle and ready to join whichever of the other two comes out ahead.

The middle grouping is the expected landing pad for coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin in a run for an office after his mandatory retirement in September, analysts said.

Under the leadership of the abrasive Samak, People's Power is expected to weaken the prospects of the Democrats leading a coalition government, despite its emergence as the favourite of the business community, they said.

The Democrats raised 100 million baht (3.1 million dollars) in July alone in donations from firms, the Election Commission said. During the years in which Thaksin won two landslide election victories, the Democrats got little from companies.

Samak, however, is facing graft probes into large projects started while he was Bangkok governor. Agencies appointed by the coup leaders are looking into the cases.

''It is their ploy to stop me from returning to politics,'' Samak told reporters this week.

REUTERS PD HS1628