Samak Sundaravej

Samak Sundaravej (born June 13, 1935, Bangkok, Thai.—died Nov. 24, 2009, Bangkok) was a Thai journalist and politician who served as prime minister of Thailand for several months (January–September) in 2008. He was the first Thai prime minister to be democratically elected since the ousting of Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister in a September 2006 military coup.

Samak grew up in Bangkok, studied law in the city at Thammasat University, and worked for a number of years as a newspaper columnist before entering politics. Originally a member of the Democrat Party, he was elected to the parliament in 1973. He stirred controversy three years later by spearheading a radio campaign against pro-democracy activists at Thammasat University and voicing support for the October 1976 crackdown that claimed the lives of dozens of students. After serving as interior minister (1976–77), Samak founded his own political party, the Prachakorn Thai Party, which he led from 1979 to 2000.

In 1992, after a military junta had toppled the Thai government, Samak was appointed deputy prime minister. In May of that year he again conspicuously supported a bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators by the Thai army. Samak later served with Thaksin in the cabinet of Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa. In 2000 Samak scored a resounding victory in the Bangkok mayoral race, but his four-year term in office ended amid allegations of corruption. He went on to host political talk shows as well as a popular cooking show on television, returning to politics in 2006 with a successful run for the Senate, where he served until Thaksin’s overthrow. After a military-appointed tribunal dissolved Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party and many top-ranking TRT members were banned from participating in politics, Samak helped establish the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) in August 2007 and became leader of the party. Under Samak’s leadership, the PPP achieved a comfortable plurality win in Thailand’s general election the following December and subsequently was able to form a multiparty governing coalition.

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On Jan. 28, 2008, the parliament of Thailand elected Samak as the country’s new prime minister. King Bhumibol Adulyadej ratified the election the following day. One month after Samak assumed the prime ministership, Thaksin returned to Thailand from exile in Britain. How much power Thaksin would wield in Samak’s government was the subject of much speculation. Critics alleged that Thaksin would control the government from behind the scenes. After Samak signaled his intention to amend Thailand’s postcoup constitution, the opposition People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) launched a mass protest against him, describing the move as an attempt to lay the groundwork for a return to power by Thaksin. Samak resisted the PAD’s calls for his resignation, but in early September he was forced to step down after the Constitutional Court found him guilty of having illegally accepted payment for TV cooking show appearances that he had made while serving as prime minister. Samak also lost a defamation suit later that month. A bid by some of Samak’s supporters in the PPP to renominate him eventually died out. Amid renewed protests by the opposition, the PPP named Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, as Samak’s successor. Somchai was soon ousted, however, and the PPP was dissolved by the Constitutional Court.