Eight years after Thaksin Shinawatra vowed his brand new Thai Rak Thai Party would transform Thailand into a regional economic power, the whole world must seem to have crumbled before his eyes.

With his letter from London resigning as party leader on Tuesday, the deposed prime minister appears to have finally run up the white flag after the September 19 coup.

He has surrendered to his fate and accepted that his dream of becoming a new Asian strongman, with TRT ruling the country for another two decades, has completely collapsed.

Even worse, Thai Rak Thai is facing trial for allegedly breaking election laws, and in the political circumstances now prevailing, the Constitution Court is likely to rule against the party's appeal. That means complete dissolution could be the party's ultimate fate.

Many hardcore political observers must find it hard to imagine that the same party which swept 377 of the 500 seats in the national poll of February 6, 2005, winning almost 19 million of 33 million votes - enough to form the first single-party government in 73 years of Thailand's democracy - is now counting down its final days.

Various party executives and former MPs have paraded in to resign in a mass exodus to avoid facing a five-year ban from running from political office if TRT is dissolved.

Not only will Thai Rak Thai itself vanish if the court imposes such a harsh punishment, but so also will all its policy promises since it assumed power in 2001, pledging to transform Thailand into a first-world country.

The promising schemes, most of which aimed to eradicate poverty, included CEO provincial governors and ambassadors, One Tambon One Product, a People's Bank and Village Funds.

"It's unfair if Thai Rak Thai is dissolved," said a loyal 35-year-old TRT member who requested anonymity.

Residing in Nakhon Ratchasima, she said Thaksin's opponents seem not to have stopped their threats

and aggression despite having

had Thaksin overthrown. They are now attempting to dissolve Thai Rak Thai and get rid of Thaksin and his legacy from this country completely, she said.

"Thai Rak Thai and Thaksin made me interested in politics but now they are disappearing," she said, adding no party would ever be in her heart again.

Another loyal TRT supporter from Khon Kaen still found it hard to disbelieve that the end of Thai Rak Thai is imminent.

"I'm sad and upset with the political crisis that Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai are facing," the 63-year-old housewife said. "I voted for Thai Rak Thai in the last three elections, even in the controversial poll on April 2."

She said she had read newspapers every day to follow the promises that TRT had delivered on while keeping an eye on the crisis threatening the party. "In my lifetime I've witnessed many military coups, and they only undermined national development," she said.

She applied to become a member of a political party for the first time, and signed up with Thai Rak Thai with its convincing new initiatives. "If the party is dissolved, I will keep my Thai Rak Thai membership card to remind me that this party gave me hope in Thai politics," she added.

A 69-year-old citizen living in Nakhon Pathom said the fall of Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai was a big blow to Thailand's democracy and its prospects of prosperity.

Regarding Thaksin as the most charismatic and visionary government leader and Thai Rak Thai as the first party of true reform Thailand has ever had, the country would definitely return to the old days of inefficient state bureaucracy, he said.

"Thaksin pressed his transforming policies so hard on the old powers that those who lost their advantages joined hand-in-hand to dethrone him," the man said.

He believed the coup against an elected government under a very popular prime minister had set Thailand back many years.

"Now we will have to restart, but Thailand will never get as close to challenging the world again as Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai did during five years in power," he said.

Weerayut Chokchaimadon

 The Nation