BANGKOK, May 12 (Reuters) – Thailand has seen two coups, three prime ministers brought down by court rulings, intermittent violence and crippling colour-coded street demonstrations during two decades of political instability.
Below are key events leading up to Sunday’s election.
2001 – Billionaire telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra is elected prime minister on a populist platform. He is hugely popular, widely regarded as a mould-breaking premier who oversaw economic growth, prioritised the rural poor and courted foreign investors with plans for modernisation.
2005 – Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party wins another election in a landslide, the first Thai party to win re-election.
2006 – Allegations of Thaksin’s corruption, cronyism, neptotism and abuse of power take hold, worsened by the tax-free sale of his family’s Shin Corporation to Singapore state investor Temasek for 73 billion…
