Sitting in her busy Bangkok noodle shop, Bunruen Klinnak professes ¡°love¡± for Thailand¡¯s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 military coup and later fled abroad.

But Klinnak, 55, also fears Thaksin¡¯s return to politics could spell further unrest in a country rocked by coups and bloody street protests over the past decade.

¡°We need to save money and be frugal because we don¡¯t know what politics will be like in the future,¡± she said.