Approximately 20000 cheering followers packed a park in Bangkok, some wearing Thaksin masks, where his associates in the People Power Party (PPP) held their final rally ahead of the elections.

The PPP’s deputy leader Chalerm Yoobamrung announced to a roaring ovation, “Thaksin said if he came back before the government is formed, he would be accused of trying to make trouble. So he will return on February 14, which is Valentines Day, the day of love”

Subsequent to the bloodless coop in 2006, he has been resident in the United Kingdom, where he has remained in the headlines, partly due to his purchase of Manchester City football club.

The PPP are campaigning to revitalize the countries economy by following Thaksin?s policies of foreign investment and pumping cash into Thailand’s rural areas. A PPP spokesman Samak Sundaravej said, “Starting now, our country will return to normal no matter which party (the military) supports. I have no reason to be afraid of them. I haven?t done anything wrong.”

Analysts are predicting no party will win an overall majority of the 480 seats forcing parties to form a coalition. Campaigning has so far been uninspiring, Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a politics lecturer at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University said, “with the policies of the main parties largely indistinguishable as they scramble to try to fill the hole left by TRT.”