Happy Birthday Dr T.

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Some pictures of Chiang Mai supporters celebrating Thaksin's 60'th birthday on Sunday night.
First few pictures are a couple of hours before Thaksin's phone-in, when speeches were being made by local radio DJ's.



Looks like they were going for some sort of record for the most number of cakes - there were lots - I didn't stick around to see who got to eat them.

There were also a large number of birthday messages being written on a large sheet - by the looks of the size of the sheet being rolled up, they might have set some sort of record for longest birthday card too:)

The crowd was much thicker when the man of the moment made his phone-in. My translator was AWOL, so I did not get all of what he was talking about, but I understand he made some announcements of projects, and at times he seemed quite emotional. The crowd listened intently and there were fireworks after the speech ended and they had sung Happy Birthday to Thaksin.

I spoke with a few in the crowd and these people are definitely not paid to attend such events, nor do they need to be paid to vote for a Thaksin party as they genuinely believe Thaksin has good policies.

They grumbled about the economy, which makes me think that perhaps Thaksin and his nominee party are somewhat fortunate they are not in power during the worst of this worldwide economic downturn as they don't have to cop the flak, and can look like saviours when they are inevitably elected.