The most senior of these is Prem Tinsulanonda, chief adviser to King Bhumibol and a former army commander and prime minister in the 1980s.

ECONOMIST: Thaksin still hankers after a triumphant homecoming

Though close to the palace, Mr Samak is a foe of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king's chief adviser and, Thaksinites allege, mastermind of the coup.

ECONOMIST: Heading for uncertainty

Mr Somchai recently met Prem Tinsulanonda, the king's chief adviser and, it is widely assumed, the driving force behind the 2006 coup, but to little effect.

ECONOMIST: Thailand

The coup was the last chance for the army's royalist old guard, led by General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king's chief adviser, to remove Mr Thaksin before he replaced them with his own cronies.

ECONOMIST: Now the hot season really begins

She appears to want to appease the royal bureaucracy, embodied in the figure of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the head of the privy council, so as to smooth the way for the return to Thailand of her elder brother by the end of the year.

ECONOMIST: Thailand��s l��se-majest�� laws