All signs are pointing to a very unique election race. The political divide between Bangkok and the country's poor regions, barring the South, is not unusual. Time and again we have had governments that commanded strong rural support, but collapsed sooner or later under the weight of Bangkok's pressure. But this is the first time that a government leader has tried to change the country's political genes by placing it at the front of an electoral campaign. Thaksin has been rousing the grass roots, telling them that their votes are worth as much as any ballot cast in the capital, and that they shall erase the long-standing curse of having to elect governments only for Bangkokians to overthrow them.

It could be a wise move, strategically speaking. To be fair to the embattled caretaker prime minister, he doesn't have many other options if he really has his mind set on staging a comeback. He and much of the middle class have been pushing each other away, and he must be very worried that the uproar in the city could have an impact upcountry, especially as the print media have largely turned against him. He needs a good story to convince his rural supporters that any negative reports they might have heard are not true, and that it's not his fault that a growing number of "elite" voters are abandoning him. Having won many rural hearts with his unrivalled populist policies, Thaksin's campaign challenge is not how to promote existing and future platforms, but how to fend off the series of serious allegations seeping out of Bangkok.

Thaksin knows better than anyone that the Thai Rak Thai Party's retreat from the capital will be costly if he can't boost his provincial support. If the Democrats win big in Bangkok, they will constitute a major threat, even from the opposition bench, and Thai Rak Thai won't look much different from the likes of the Chat Thai and New Aspiration parties that came before it. Thaksin needs a very resounding rural victory come October 15, pure and simple. And he is doing what a man like him needs to do to come out on top.

The upcoming election will be about which characterisation fits - whether he is a Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to the poor, or whether he's simply a cunning politician who knows how to spend state money to hide his guilt from an ill-informed populace. He will stop at nothing to portray himself as a hero victimised by a conspiracy, while his opponents will do the same to "expose" what they deem the biggest political deception Thailand has ever seen.

His criticism of the Bangkok electorate will make the Democrats' job a bit easier. Abhisit Vejjajiva's party will consider it a success if they lose to Thai Rak Thai in the nationwide tally but beat Thaksin fair and square in Bangkok. Looking at the Democrats' relatively poor budget and awkward social policies - which critics describe as not much more than timid copies of Thaksin's populism - it would appear that Thailand's oldest party does not have much of a chance of improving on its previous efforts to steal some rural votes from him.

On the surface, this all looks like a build-up to a healthy political campaign. A "party for the poor" pledging to divert the national budget into all kinds of social programmes is fighting against a conservative party promising budgetary prudence and the creation of long-term self-reliance.

Sadly, just beneath the surface is a muddy mixture of corruption, political expediency at its disastrous worst, lies of an unparalleled scale and allegedly rampant abuse of state mechanisms. And beneath all this is an unprecedented national split.