PM ducks kiss from taxi motorcyclist

Published on February 7, 2005

A taxi motorcyclist may have to offer up nine chickens to a late monk, after she failed in her quest to kiss Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday.

Prayoon Chaichim, 51, who works from the Pak Khlong flower market, told The Nation that she made a prayer to offer nine chickens to the famous monk Luang Por Sothon if she did not kiss Thaksin on election day.

Prayoon, who called Thaksin her “father”, spent the whole day carrying a gold-frame portrait of the PM as she waited for the premier to arrive at Shinawatra Tower III, which houses Thai Rak Thai’s headquarters.

She wore an orange taxi-motorcycle waistcoat with an embroidered message for Thaksin.

Prayoon said she had been wearing the waistcoat for a long time as a mark of respect for the premier.

She said she became fond of Thaksin after benefiting from

his party’s Bt30 healthcare scheme.

Prayoon was not the only Thaksin admirer who waited patiently to catch a glance of him yesterday.

Another fan, an old woman, was also unlucky yesterday – she hit her head on the ground after being accidentally knocked over by photographers flocking around Thaksin, after he arrived at the party headquarters.

Police tried to calm her down as the premier was interviewed by reporters two metres away.

She said she just wanted to see how the premier looked.

Hundreds of Thai and foreign media packed the party’s headquarters to interview Thaksin.

Key Thai Rak Thai members started arriving at Shinawatra Tower III in the afternoon to watch the vote count on TV and welcome the PM.

Thaksin, dressed in a navy suit and accompanied by his wife and son, arrived at the headquarters in his dark-grey BMW sports car at around 6.30pm.

Thanyaporn Kunakornpaiboonsiri
The Nation

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