Raw emotion over Thaksin verdict

By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Bangkok

Thaksin Shinawatra still has his supporters

Thaksin Shinawatra has probably never met the woman who was crying for him today.

Outside Bangkok's Supreme Court, in the pouring monsoon rain, she stood by the steel barricades put up by the city's nervous police, and took in the verdict, tears running down her face.

"He is a Thai man," she said. "He should be allowed to come back to his motherland. Why does no-one remember all the good things he has done?"

Mr Thaksin himself was not around to share her anger, or indeed to hear the verdict against him.

He was thousands of miles away in London when the judge pronounced him guilty of corruption and of using his influence as prime minister to help his wife buy state land at a discount price.

Mr Thaksin says the charges are politically motivated.

A lot is being blamed on politics here at the moment, and Mr Thaksin is probably Thailand's most divisive figure.

Camped out

Across town, at the prime minister's office, thousands of his opponents have been camped out for months, pressing for the resignation of Mr Thaksin's successors one by one - politicians they say are still under his influence.

We will keep fighting until we achieve the new political system we want Protester Thais views: Thaksin sentence

Under the stern eye of Government House, they have built a city of scaffolding and plastic sheeting. Rows of stalls selling soup, toilet paper and political souvenirs are tattooed with posters of the latest government hate figures.

The mood there today was jubilant. No tears here.

Even the celebration speeches to mark the verdict were drowned out by cheering.

But after months of wrangling over Mr Thaksin's record as premier, the debate has now moved on. Mr Thaksin's conviction, even the fall of another government, will not be enough to heal the political rifts in the country.

"We're not going home now," said one protester. "We will keep fighting until we achieve the new political system we want."

That new political system is a step back from Thailand's democracy. A vague plan, put forward by protest leaders, to make 70% of the parliament appointed.

And that is mostly because Mr Thaksin and his allies keep on winning elections.

On the defensive

To many of the country's rural poor, Mr Thaksin was the first prime minister to recognise their poverty and try to do something about it.

Mr Thaksin has been living in the UK

His opponents - drawn largely from the urban elite - have called it vote-buying. But whichever way you see it, in a country with one-man, one-vote, it works.

And the longer this political stalemate goes on, the tenser the situation becomes.

The last few weeks have seen worrying signs. Violence has erupted between protesters and police, and the queen and the army commander have seemingly aligned themselves with Mr Thaksin's critics.

The current government - seen as under the influence of Mr Thaksin - is increasingly isolated. And Mr Thaksin's conviction will not do much to strengthen its hand.

But it is not only his supporters who want the former prime minister back.

Outside court today, prosecutors said they would ask Britain to extradite him to serve his two-year prison sentence.

Should Mr Thaksin return, he will find himself at the centre of a much bigger row than the one he started.