One little slip-up and Bam, you walk alone

Published on December 3, 2007

She was a fixture front and centre with party leader Banharn Silpa-archa in past election campaigns, glowing like a gem in her perfect makeup in the midst of the regular lumps of coal. She's always been easy on the eyes, something you can't exactly say about Banharn.

But things have changed. At the outset of the current campaign there was talk of Bam jumping overboard and swimming to another party's ship. That proved to be just idle gossip, but she didn't help matters by missing the Official Chart Thai Group Photo Session, something that's never happened before.

And because she skipped the first photo-op, the party didn't bother telling her there was going to be another one, so if something seems odd about the latest Chart Thai posters and leaflets, it's the absence of a once-familiar face.

Banharn does indeed seem to be keeping Bam at arm's length lately, and the press photographers are griping about it. She wasn't onstage with him at the party's first-ever Bangkok rally held recently in Lumpini Park. Instead his wife Jamsai was standing there. It just wasn't the same, you know?

But in fact Bam was there - she just arrived too late to get in on the action.

Losing interest in the great game? Not on your telly, Nelly. She's working hard to get elected, that's what she's doing, putting all her effort into meeting the folks who count in Don Muang, Bang Khen and Sai Mai districts, which is Constituency 5, her personal turf. It's a good thing, too, because a fresh poll by Ramkhamhaeng University found that she's not all that popular there, and the party's expectation that she'll easily grab the MP's seat could be heading for a rocky landing.

Bam doesn't want to lose this one, though, and that's why she's hitting the hustings hard. She's managed to lose almost 10 kilograms so far trying, a dramatic slim-down that set ignoble tongues wagging about Bam hanging around too much with her sister Chayada, who promotes a weight-loss clinic.

She may be losing weight, but she's determined not to lose the vote.