But that did not prevent Somkid from leaving the job less than one week after his appointment, citing strong opposition from the People's Alliance for Democracy and other political allies of the Surayud government and its military guardian, the Council for National Security (CNS). Somkid said he stepped down because he did not want to be seen as a political liability to the prime minister and because he wanted to demonstrate his commitment to reconciliation between the country's fractious political forces.

For Surayud, being patronised in this way by Somkid, who was supposed to lay low because of his guilt by association with Thaksin, was very politically damaging to his leadership.

Somkid managed to raise his profile as a political leader to reckon with - one who is seen both by the Surayud government and Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party as a key player in the run-up to the next general election, scheduled before the end of this year and beyond. Somkid made ample use of the opportunity to whitewash his own reputation by publicly dissociating himself from his former political master, who has been accused of being anti-democratic and corrupt.

At the press conference he held to announce his resignation, Somkid claimed that during the five and a half years he spent as a key member of the Thaksin Cabinet, his economic policy initiatives did not always agree with Thaksin Shinawatra's economic management style. He also said that despite the differences in their approaches to economic management, he decided to stay in the Cabinet because he thought he could make a positive contribution to the country from the inside.

Somkid also said that his economic philosophy, which he held on to from the time he served in Thaksin's first Cabinet at the beginning of 2001 until the downfall of the government, emphasised the need to revive the country's ailing economy and then to rebuild a strong basis for sustainable economic growth and a fair distribution of national wealth. According to Somkid, his idea of a good economic policy was different from what Thaksin had in mind.

Many would undoubtedly find Somkid's account difficult to believe - let alone his sudden change of tack in wholeheartedly embracing the sufficiency economy philosophy.

Nevertheless, Somkid's latest move not only made the interim government look bad in the eyes of the Thai public, it also put into question the quality of Surayud's leadership. It was obvious that the Surayud government's original idea was to use Somkid as a weapon to hurt Thaksin's credibility, or what remains of it in the eyes of the international community.

Since his ouster, Thaksin has given a few interviews to international media outlets aimed at discrediting the Surayud administration and the military junta. Those, combined with economic management blunders on the part of the Surayud government and its lack of articulation in presenting the sufficiency economy philosophy to the world, have caused widespread misunderstandings that have shaken international investors' confidence.

It was thought that getting Somkid, widely seen as the main architect of Thaksinomics, to publicly disown his former political master would be a good tactic to puncture the former prime minister's reputation. In other words, Somkid was supposed to wage a proxy war against Thaksin on behalf of the Surayud government and the CNS.

The Surayud government made the big gamble and lost. Somkid's appointment proved to be a double-edged sword that cut both ways: the interim government was badly cut for its ineptitude in dealing in matters of political trickery that it had little understanding of, while Somkid got himself a better deal than he deserved.