Thaksin says he's too busy for sex
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has developed a reputation for gaffes that is second to none in Asia, and he shows no signs of pulling his foot out of his mouth.
Launching a new election campaign last week in which he promised virtually everyone in Thailand some kind of largesse, Mr Thaksin confided that politics had consumed his life to the point where he did not have a sex life to speak of any more.
What he actually said was bo mee haeng, northeastern slang for 'no power', but it amounts to the same thing and brought out his critics.
'Inappropriate,' said Senator Wallop Tangkananurak, while Democrat politician Rangsima Rodrasami complained: 'He's prime minister, but he has no idea what he can and can't say.'
Mr Thaksin was not done. The next day, he announced that his growing number of white hairs was a worse problem than bird flu, and followed up on his sexual dysfunction, informing the media that sex 'is nothing - it's gone at a certain age anyhow'.
Some of his more memorable gaffes are now political legend. He famously admitted that his wife, Pojamarn, was 'my conscience', leading many to wonder if they had elected two prime ministers.
He announced that the national carrier, Thai Airways, 'sucked' - and soon after invested in a rival, cut-price carrier AirAsia.
For foreign journalists and newspapers, he reserved one of his most colourful epithets, ngo badsop, which, it was agreed after much debate in the local press, translated roughly as 'idiot scum'.
Mr Thaksin, who comes from the north, blames his foot-in-mouth disease on a 'lack of proficiency' in the central Thai dialect spoken by the power elite.
But some observers believe he might be more canny than he lets on. 'It's a funny thing, these gaffes seem to occur when Thaksin is on the ropes for far more serious matters,' one journalist said.
