wake up?? I guess you dont realize how much Thai people prospered when he was PM.
He did allot of good for the people, He helped the famers, which no politician in Thailand did before.
Has his time passed, yes it has. However, to say he is a disgrace seems to show you dont know what he was charged with and what he did for the Thai people.
Here's a few things he did as PM.
He injected funds into agriculture programs providing low interest loans to Famers, Village Development Funds, Village managed Microcredit loans.
He started the 30 baht medical program,(universal healthcare) he initiated the One TamBon program, which again helped the lower income and small mom and pop business.
Allot of massive infrastructure projects inculding getting the airport completed. GDP went from a little under 5 Trillion to a little over 7 Trillion.
Foreign exchange reserves almost doubled to $60+ Billion. He balanced the budget!!!
I recall Thai's being happy at the time with business thriving, our company had projects lined up for years to come due to all the plant expansions and new factories being built.
Export's were up! Tourism was just starting to take off. This might be the reason he was elected as PM the second time in 2005.
What was he charged with?? Conflict of interest, for what?? selling is IT company. There were also some land transactions though his wife that were not on the up and up.
The war on drugs was an issue too, however corruption was seen by the international community as being down when we was in office.
He did start the crack down on visa runs, visa rules and overstays.