Will it just be another Thai Groundhog Day at the polls?

If Thai politics was a movie, it would be tempting to think of it as Groundhog Day, or at least Back to the Future.

Thailand's 47 million voters go to the polls today in an election that, once again, is all about fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra. With Thaksin come the divides that continue to split one of the region's traditionally freest countries.

Whatever Thaksin's detractors say about his lack of courage or his excesses, none doubt the political cunning of the former tycoon and prime minister, now three years into exile from a corruption sentence.

At various moments since the military coup that drove him from power in 2006, Thaksin has appeared finished amid legal and strategic manoeuvring by Thai establishment elites, as well as his own missteps. His call for a 'people's revolution' in early 2009 fell flat and was widely seen as a last desperate move.

Yet, two years on, here he is again, pulling strings from a luxury pad in Dubai. He has access to a private jet, loyal functionaries and a significant proportion of his former wealth.

At home, his Pheu Thai party political machine is, at least according to the last legal polls a week ago, poised for a solid victory today. If Pheu Thai can then cobble together a ruling coalition government, an amnesty may clear the way for him to return in November.

Thaksin's masterstroke this time has been the shrewd use of his youngest sister, Yingluck, as an overnight prime ministerial candidate from relative obscurity. There is not even a pretence of subtlety about who and what Yingluck, who has previously headed various arms of Thaksin's business empire, represents.