The AP says in a story today that “in the space of just a few weeks,” Yingluck “has catapulted to near rock star status on Thailand’s political stage, becoming the opposition’s main contender in the vote.”
The piece includes this snippet from the campaign trail in northeastern Thailand:
Holding the election was a key demand last year of the so-called Red Shirt protesters, tens of thousands of whom poured into Bangkok from the provinces and shut down parts of it by camping out downtown for two months.
One of them, civil servant Nutwara Autehaloek, said during one of Yingluck’s speeches in Trakarn Pheutphon that “if history repeats itself” — if the opposition legally wins but is prevented from governing — “we will return to Bangkok in greater numbers than before.”