By THITINAN PONGSUDHIRAK

Never before in Thailand's democratic history has there been such a foregone conclusion as the victory this Sunday of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party. Mr Thaksin has consolidated his rule over the past four years after having overcome challenges from civil society, the opposing Democrat party and even cautionary signals from the palace. Critical issues such as corruption and bird flu have been kept at bay. Only the southern violence has denied him complete political invincibility.

The anti-Thaksin movement led by civil society columns is gathering pace, but it still does not have the coherence, the organisation, the energy and the resources to match Mr Thaksin's ingenuity and his omnipotent Thai Rak Thai party machine. Indeed, his rise and rule have been so phenomenal and unrivalled in Thai political annals that they have given rise to a burgeoning sub-field in the study of Thai politics that can only be dubbed Thaksinology, underpinned by all kinds of books and articles focusing on Mr Thaksin and all facets of his personal and professional life.

Indeed, Thaksin watchers of all stripes, especially his most trenchant critics, have been left to wonder how the prime minister has managed to pull it all off. How has he maintained such tight political control over democratic rules and practices while remaining so popular?

To understand the prime minister's resilient popularity, it is necessary to appreciate the nature of his populism.

Mr Thaksin seized on the vacuum created by the 1997 economic crisis, which so damaged national pride and spread pain and resentment across all segments of society, to cultivate, expand and maintain Thai nationalism, with the enemy being the IMF-led, neo-liberal economic adjustments reinforced by globalisation forces. Rejecting the IMF, neo-liberal model and globalisation, Mr Thaksin struck a chord with the Thai people by promising greater self-reliance. Together with nationalism, he also exploited populism, doing and saying everything for and in the name of the people.

His brand of nationalism and his knack for populism have gone hand in hand. Mad at the world for their 1997 crisis, Thais embraced Mr Thaksin like a long-lost saviour. He captured their hearts and minds, and, in doing this, he also captured the Thai state as we know it. As long as he has the people eating from the palm of his hand using myriad pro-people policies that emphasise subsidies, handouts and giveaways, Mr Thaksin's ship of state will steam full speed ahead.

But there is more to this than Mr Thaksin's shrewd populism and nationalism. While he has kept accountability-promoting institutions such as the Constitution Court and the Senate off-balance, Mr Thaksin has also methodically transformed the political environment to suit his rule.

Unlike others before it, the Thai Rak Thai party has been able to keep a firm lid on its different factions that hail from patronage networks. These unruly squads of provincial MPs have made and broken many an unwieldy coalition government in years past. The balance has shifted under Thai Rak Thai's reinforced umbrella where the party has greater leverage over its factions.

With his sister's northern faction and Bangkok-based MPs loyal to himself, Mr Thaksin has ensured that no other faction within Thai Rak Thai can hold his government hostage.

Mr Thaksin's overwhelming-majority coalition formation strategy also has paid off handsomely. Most pre-Thai Rak Thai coalition governments had only just enough MPs to hold a parliamentary majority, resulting in chronic instability as factions wreaked havoc in their competition for portfolios. Aided by new constitutional provisions favouring larger parties, the overwhelming-majority strategy has seen Mr Thaksin incorporate the Seritham, New Aspiration and Chart Pattana parties into the governing coalition and then into Thai Rak Thai, isolating and neutralising the opposing Democrats.

As election day on Sunday approaches, Mr Thaksin's spellbinding popularity during his first term in office will probably be repeated in 2005 and beyond. The only spanner in the works is the intensifying unrest in the deep South, which has rumbled on out of control since it began in January 2004.

The southern instability has dented Mr Thaksin's ambitions to become a regional leader on a par with Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamed or Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. But he is still likely to renew his quest for regional leadership through such major foreign policy forays as the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, the Bangkok Process on Burma's political dialogue, and bilateral free trade agreements.

As things stand, the escalation of the southern violence is the only serious threat to Mr Thaksin in his second term. If the Muslim separatists diversify their war on the Thai state from Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat to other strategic areas such as Bangkok or Phuket, Mr Thaksin could be in trouble. Thailand's risk status would deteriorate sharply, with dire consequences for economic growth assumptions. Economic expansion, after all, is the lynchpin of Mr Thaksin's political legitimacy.

Continuing violence by Muslim separatists, whether just in the three southern border provinces or beyond, may also elicit a reactionary response from the government and the establishment forces that make up the Thai state. Such an outcome would also jeopardise growth assumptions.

If the southern violence can be contained and confined to the deep South, Mr Thaksin's second- and third-generation populist policies will be rolled out on a regular basis, keeping the people giddy and his premiership secured.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a lecturer with the Department of International Relations, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University