WHAT does a deposed prime minister do with his time? Maybe a little shopping, or a round of golf - anything that avoids politics.
Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in Thailand in September, has been circling his country, from China to Hong Kong and Bali.
But wherever he goes, reporters catch up with him. Almost every day he is in the newspapers back home, the cou
p victim who just won't go away.
He seems to be having a better time than the generals who ousted him, who are struggling to master the bucking bronco of a country he left behind.
And the more the wealthy man smiles, the more he shops, the more he jokes that "I need a job because I'm unemployed now", the more nervous the generals seem.
They were going to revoke martial law "within days"; in a couple of weeks; they are going to lift it "when things are stable". The latest promise is to lift it "before the new year".
Thaksin has "every right to return," they say; he "shouldn't come back at present"; it would be better for him to wait a year.
If he does suddenly decide to return, what will he do? What will the generals do? They now say they will refuse to let him off the plane, but it is not that simple. He is still the most popular political figure in the country, with a huge base among rural voters. He is certainly the richest politician in a land where money does not even have to talk. His network of operatives is still in place, waiting, the generals fear, for his signal.
A regional army commander reported last month that he had detected underground "cells" of Thaksin supporters in rural areas, ready to make trouble. The junta has reshuffled 136 battalion commanders in a move that seemed to suggest that they were worried about loyalty in the armed forces.
It would not take much to mobilise Thaksin's rural base, to fill the streets with protesters, to make life very difficult for the men in power.
So they are stuck. If they lift martial law and allow mass gatherings, those "undercurrents" of opposition they talk about could burst into a destabilising flood.
But the longer they maintain control, the more they look like just another power-hungry junta rather than the saviours of democracy they seem to yearn to be.
When the generals moved against Thaksin on September 19 while he was in the United States, their peaceful coup was welcomed by Thailand's middle class, which was concerned about his actions to cripple the country's democratic processes and institutions and harvest power for himself.
The military leaders have appointed a civilian government - led by a former general - whose task is to draw up a constitution in preparation for an election late next year. Then, they promise, they will step aside.
But their first two months have gone slowly as they have come up against complexities that cannot be solved with tanks. A small pro-democracy movement is growing louder. Political opponents are meeting openly. The middle class is growing impatient.
On Monday, a leading pro-democracy group, the Campaign for Popular Democracy, criticised the junta for failing to tackle the country's problems.
The new government still has broad public support, though. It is investigating the financial dealings of Thaksin and his family, and last week said it was considering criminal charges against his wife and brother-in-law for tax evasion. His political party is fraying at the edges.
But in an informal survey last week, the public displayed their impatience with the junta as they set out an agenda for the interim government: crack down on corruption, reform the civil service, maintain social order, rehabilitate flooded lands, reduce poverty and debt, combat crime and tame a Muslim insurgency in the south.
That is not exactly a two-month agenda. Worst of all, the new leaders have not yet been able to bring the corruption charges they had hoped would deter Thaksin from coming back.
So the man who billed himself as the can-do CEO prime minister has turned coy, issuing teasing statements through a spokesman, Noppadol Pattama: "He has no plan to return"; "He will return to Thailand when the time is right"; "It is probably too soon to say."
A month after Thaksin was ousted, his influential wife, Pojamon, paid a high-profile call on Prem Tinsulanonda, a senior adviser to the king, who is believed to have been active in orchestrating the coup.
"She insists Mr Thaksin won't engage in political activities after he returns," the Bangkok Post quoted a source close to Prem as saying.
Few people took that statement at face value, and there have been no more public overtures. But Pojamon's private activities when she is in town are a source of speculation.
Last week, she was with her husband in Hong Kong for what might be called photo opportunities, strolling hand in hand and smiling for cameras.
If Thaksin does get on a plane to Bangkok, what will the generals do? They could find themselves trapped in what some people are calling the Aung San Suu Kyi scenario - a reference to the high-profile detention of neighbouring Myanmar's Nobel Prize-winning politician.
He has made the comparison in the past: another champion of democracy locked away by thuggish generals.
"He hopes he will be put under house arrest the minute he sets foot in Bangkok," wrote The Nation newspaper. "The spectre of Thaksin popping up somewhere in the country is no longer far-fetched."
The full article contains 957 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
