After all, how many other political leaders have had the luxury of having their every move and word covered live and uninterrupted for five full days? Only those in communist states could have commanded such attention.

Without a doubt, the At Samat campaign was a big publicity coup. Regardless of its substance or lack thereof, Thaksin did succeed in using the trip to portray himself as a leader who has the suffering of the rural folk at heart. And if Thaksin’s hidden agenda was to use the event to divert attention from more pressing issues and his personal political woes, as alleged by critics, then he also pulled that off rather brilliantly.

Among the various nagging questions that his week of political fantasy allowed him to avoid answering were the pending sell-off of his family’s shares in Shin Corp to Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and charges of corruption and conflict of interest that have been increasingly hurled at him and his administration.

But the respite provided him by the At Samat “reality show” was only temporary. The reality that awaited him in Bangkok was not something he could stage-manage the way he did in Roi Et.

Despite all of the pomp, there are strong doubts that the energy he put into the whole exercise in that village hundreds of kilometres from Bangkok will help him ride out the rising tide of discontentment among the middle class.

The At Samat show will be best remembered for its theatrical effects, particularly Thaksin’s handing out wads of cash to villagers and his instructive approach in dealing with their plight.

Well aware of the dozens of cameras zooming in on him, Thaksin tried to make it appear that poverty was something that could be solved on the spot. At times, his approach veered on the verge of sleight-of-hand trickery.

If a villager went to him to complain about being poor, Thaksin dug into his pocket and produced a few Bt1,000 banknotes – his problem of poverty solved in no time at all.

Another villager appeared with a tale of indebtedness. Thaksin immediately ordered the district chief to negotiate a moratorium with the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.

One family wanted a piece of land for farming, Thaksin ordered officials from the land-reform agency to put the members on a list of those eligible for a land-distribution programme – of course, as a top-priority case.

The pathetic sight of dozens of students of a local school turning up to greet him in tattered uniforms prompted Thaksin to hand out yet another bundle of cold cash, this time to the school headmaster, while a villager confined to a wheelchair was immediately rewarded with Bt5,000 cash for praising local employees of Advanced Information Service, the giant mobile-telephone operator majority-owned by the Shinawatra family.

If Thaksin’s idea was to convince district chiefs and governors nationwide to tune in and learn lessons from his “At Samat model”, then he was definitely in for a big disappointment. An unofficial opinion poll found that only 7 per cent of the officials cared to watch their prime minister in action.

And even those who did bother to switch on were scratching their heads as to what they actually learned from those five days of sitting in front of the television set.

Of course, they themselves can wield neither the money nor the political power to rally impoverished villagers to the cause of fighting poverty the way Thaksin tried to demonstrate. He did show them the way, but it’s simply beyond their means and ability to emulate.

The causes of poverty in Thailand are many and deep-rooted. And undeniably, corruption among bureaucrats and politicians is a major one. Misguided government policies are also responsible for impoverishing the rural population.

The Thaksin administration’s emphasis on domestic spending to stimulate the economy through easy loans and village funds has also contributed greatly to the increasing levels of indebtedness among the very citizens he is trying to help.

Until last week, Thaksin had never considered fighting poverty a priority. The numerous trips he made to rural areas were meant as publicity stunts rather than serious attempts to address villagers’ woes.

Substance-wise, his At Samat show was merely an extension of these political feats.

The only difference was the spectacular publicity it generated, thanks to the ingenuity of Thaksin’s PR machine.

Buoyed by what he sees as an unprecedented propaganda success in At Samat, there is no reason to believe that Thaksin will not be tempted to repeat it elsewhere. The biggest danger now is that Thaksin himself seems to believe his own publicity.

Thepchai Yong