The friend of my friend introduced himself. He had worked as a chauffeur for a bank CEO for more than 20 years.

I was left alone with him when the shop-owner left to take care of other customers. When I started the conversation by asking him if Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra should step down any time soon, he paused and suggested we find other topics for discussion.

Indeed, talking politics can sour a fresh relationship, I reflected, and probably will if he’s pro-government.

This was the evening before the big February 11 anti-government rally at the Royal Plaza.

After a couple of drinks, I thought I’d try to change his mind so as to learn some of his political views and preferences at this crucial juncture. I wasn’t sure if he was really pro-government, but I told him that I would be happy to hear about both the pros and cons of what the government was doing.

Given my assurance, he became more relaxed and brought up the Bt30-per-visit healthcare programme.

My new friend, who is in his mid-40s, has a wife and two kids and earns about Bt20,000 a month, given his long service with the bank, said one of his relatives in the provinces had recently been in a state hospital for nearly two months following a major operation. All his relatives paid was Bt30. Then he said his wife, who currently had no income, had been admitted to a private hospital near his home in suburban Bangkok a few weeks ago for severe stomach pains late one night.

She was examined and remained in hospital overnight. The following day the doctor said she was okay and could return home. The medical bill was Bt7,000 or Bt8,000, an amount he could ill afford.

Despite all the harsh criticism and the movement demanding Thaksin’s resignation, the guy seemed to have made up his mind that the government still had a mandate to govern no matter what the media and all the critics said about the premier and his family’s business dealings in the wake of the Bt73-billion Shin/Temasek deal.

He said he thought that because the Thaksin government had been elected by popular vote it was not legitimate to overthrow it by huge demonstrations. He believed that people should allow the Thaksin II government to stay in office for the remaining three years of its term.

Before he left for home around midnight, he made sure I got the point that he wouldn’t be attending any anti-government rally any time soon.

Afterwards the owner returned to my table as the number of customers began declining, so I asked him what he thought about the government and the anti-government movement. He sighed and said to me that his perspective was rather the opposite of that of his old friend who had just left. He thought the premier no longer had a mandate to govern and should resign.

I asked him why he and his friend held such radically divergent views.

He said he had been following the political news more intensely lately, especially since the premier’s family had sold off Shin Corp to the Temasek Group of Singapore. He was, he said, aware of all the charges against Thaksin, from substantial tax avoidance and the sale abroad of key national assets to a possible recurrence of the hidden-assets scenario.

Overall, speaking as the owner of a small business, he said he thought it was wrong for the premier to keep running the country.

He wondered why one of his good friends still liked the prime minister, despite all the charges hurled at him. He admitted that he himself had admired the premier during his first term of office as a man capable of revitalising the economy in short order and had liked his style of strong leadership, but now he had changed his mind.

He hinted that he wouldn’t join the anti-government movement just yet but didn’t rule out future participation either.

Maybe he is one of the “undecideds” who account for nearly 30 per cent of respondents to recent polls on Thaksin’s popularity following the controversial Shin deal. These polls show that the majority of respondents (slightly more than 50 per cent) still support the premier. Respondents who wanted the premier to quit were in the minority, accounting for just some 20 per cent.

Given this week’s rejection by the Constitution Court of a senatorial petition for impeachment of the premier for conflict of interests between his public office and his family’s business dealings, we must await the next public-opinion polls to see if Thai politics is further polarised.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

 nop1122@yahoo.com