Political watchers saw it coming: Korn Chatikavanij bowing out of the Chartpattanakla Party and drawing to a close one of the most spectacular political mismatches in recent years.
Mr Korn's political path since leaving the Democrat Party in 2020 has been strewn with potholes, although quitting the country's oldest party had opened up a chance for him to carve his own niche.
The former finance minister turned his back on the Democrats at the height of the party's tumult. The party was stuck in a leadership vacuum and Mr Korn threw his name in the hat hoping to have a shot at replacing Abhisit Vejjajiva who stepped down as leader over the party's poor showing in the 2019 general election.
The critics were having a field day speculating about the Democrat leader candidates. Several agreed the contest had boiled down to acumen and closeness to the corridors of power in the party.
The winner was Jurin Laksanawisit, who was reported to be a protege of party patriarch and former prime minister Chuan Leekpai. As Mr Jurin set out to consolidate his influence on the party, Mr Korn must have felt irrelevant and decided to sever ties with the Democrats and establish his own base, according to a political analyst.
Mr Korn had risen through the ranks in the Democrats and in the government the party led. But there was no masking the fact that he was operating in the party's shadow and controlling no faction or camp that could have given him the needed bargaining chip in internal negotiations or leverage in political manoeuvrings.
It did not take Mr Korn long after parting ways with the Democrats for him to register a party he could truly call his own, the Kla (Brave).
To some observers, the party name summed up Mr Korn's newfound attribute on which Kla's success in the political arena would rest. The party, co-founded by Atavit Suwannapakdi who served as Kla's first secretary-general, welcomed into its fold many former Democrats disenchanted with the way the party was being run under the new leadership.
The party's first election battle was when it competed in the Bangkok city council polls in 2022 but failed to garner a single seat.
The same year, Mr Korn baffled even his own supporters when the party came out to declare it was forging a political alliance with the Chartpattana Party which was subsequently renamed Chartpattanakla.
However, Kla was still functioning as a political outfit, although most noted politicians had moved over to Chartpattanakla.
The birth of the unlikely alliance was to prepare Chartpattanakla for May's general election.
The idea was to combine Chartpattana's firm footing in several strongholds in Nakhon Ratchasima, a province rich in constituencies, and Kla's appeal to urban voters.
Chatpattana, according to the analyst, is a living example of an old-school political entity entrenched in the wheeling-dealing approach to getting things done.
The party is closely tied to political veteran Suwat Liptapanlop who is the chairman of Chartpattanakla.
Kla, one the other hand, came across as the type of party that would rather break than bend.
Mr Korn was selected as the Chartpattanakla chief to lead the party into the May election.
But the party suffered a huge setback having grabbed only one constituency seat in Nakhon Ratchasima and a party list seat, prompting Mr Korn to step down as leader in June this year.
Prior to Mr Korn quitting, Chartpattanakla was reportedly invited to join the bloc attempting to form a coalition government headed by election winner, the Move Forward Party (MFP).
Chartpattanakla, however, was quickly discarded after MFP supporters rejected Mr Korn for having aligned himself with the Prayut Chan-o-cha administration, which they branded a legacy of a dictatorship.
Even though Mr Korn relinquished the Chartpattanakla leadership, he remained a party member, but was visibly drifting apart from the party.
The last straw came when Chartpattanakla took in Witthiphong Thonglour, the disgraced MP for Prachin Buri.
He was expelled from the MFP amid a sexual harassment scandal involving a female assistant and was shortly welcomed with open arms into Chartpattanakla on Nov 29, the same day Mr Korn announced it had resigned his party membership.
A political source said it was clear that, even though Mr Korn mentioned nothing in his resignation letter about why he decided to sever ties with Chartpattanakla, he could not stomach the party taking in someone with a blemished record for the sake of adding one extra MP to its ranks.
Did PM go on hideaway holiday?
Srettha: Timing raised suspicions
Barely four months into his term as prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, who promised to work tirelessly upon assuming office in August, took a three-day holiday in Phuket this week.
His short break from the hustle of Bangkok -- from Tuesday afternoon to yesterday afternoon -- would have gone unnoticed if the timing had not coincided with upcoming expiry of convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's 120-day stay in a police hospital.
Mr Srettha's holiday plan was leaked to the public while he was attending the Asean-Japan Commemorative Summit in Japan. He initially submitted a request to the Secretariat of the Cabinet to take leave from Dec 18-22. He later changed the period from 1pm on Dec 19 to 12pm on Dec 22.
The prime minister returned from Japan on Monday and chaired the weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning before heading to Phuket for a rest with his family.
After word about the vacation got out, Somkid Chuakong, the prime minister's deputy secretary-general, said Mr Srettha needed a rest after more than three months of "arduous and restless" work.
However, the public and political pundits questioned the timing of his getaway. Was it a well-deserved break, or could there be something beneath the surface?
Dec 22 marks the 120th day of Thaksin's stay at the Police General Hospital. Under Justice Ministry regulations, the Department of Corrections (DoC) will decide whether the convicted ex-premier will continue receiving treatment at an external facility or be transferred back to prison.
Thaksin, 74, who remains hugely influential in the ruling Pheu Thai Party, returned to Thailand on Aug 22 after 15 years of self-imposed exile, to serve eight years in prison for abuse of power and graft.
However, he was held for about 13 hours at Bangkok Remand Prison before being transferred to the Police General Hospital for health reasons, where he has remained since.
Doubts have grown as to whether Thaksin, whose eight-year jail sentence on graft charges was reduced to one year following a royal pardon, is really seriously ill and still needs intensive care outside of prison as claimed by the DoC.
In light of this, the DoC has issued a new regulation which allows for the detention of inmates outside of prison. The venues for detaining them include houses or buildings that are registered addresses.
The rule is being widely criticised as beneficial to Thaksin who once announced that he would not spend a single day or night in jail. According to people familiar with the rule, including Deputy Prime Minister Somsak Thepsutin, Thaksin is eligible to be detained outside prison under the new rule.
With the 120-day mark having arrived and drawn increased attention, Mr Srettha's abrupt vacation was widely seen as intricately linked to Thaksin's detention issue.
According to observers, the timing of Mr Srettha's holiday is more than mere coincidence. Political activists have been calling on Mr Srettha to send Thaksin back to jail, but the prime minister has so far distanced himself from the matter.
Olarn Thinbangtieo, a political science lecturer at Burapha University, told the Bangkok Post that there is no such thing as coincidence in politics, despite Mr Srettha citing his sons' return from abroad as the reason for taking leave.
Pointing out that the main opposition Move Forward Party (MFP) pays no attention to Thaksin's "unusually" prolonged stay at the Police General Hospital, he said there is a good chance that Thaksin could be pulling strings for his early release during this period.
It is no secret that the Justice Ministry, supervised by Tawee Sodsong, is under his control, the analyst said, adding Mr Srettha has been avoiding the issue and passed the buck to the Justice Ministry and the DoC.
"The prime minister must have weighed the risks and knows it's not worth the trouble being dragged into the matter. Going away on a mini-vacation is the best course of action in this situation," he said.
Senator Somchai Sawangkarn shared the same thought. For him it is a bit unusual for Mr Srettha to take leave after only four months in office. In the private sector, he would still be serving a probationary period.
Thus, Mr Srettha's holiday can only lead him to speculate that some key Pheu Thai figures are lobbying the Justice Ministry to do something that will allow Thaksin's early release, possibly this month, and the prime minister may want to maintain some distance from the sensitive issue to keep himself legally safe.
Stithorn Thananithichot, an analyst at King Prajadhipok's Institute, said there could have been other important issues during the leave period that the prime minister did not want to get directly involved with.
"There could be other issues, not just Thaksin's detention. The kind of issues that require his decision, but he is staying out of the fray," he said.