The Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's popularity has fallen down, due to continuous corruption accusation against his cabinet and constant violence in the country's deep south, showed a poll's result on Thursday.

The Prime Minister's popularity has slipped below 50 percent, the first time in two years, according to the survey conducted by ABAC University, which had a 2.19-percent margin of error.

Among the 5,300 people surveyed, only 48.1 percent supported Thaksin, a cut down compared to 61.6 percent just two months earlier.

It was the prime minister's lowest rating since August 2002, when it plunged to 44.2 percent.

Some 65.4 percent respondents of the latest poll attributed the falling of Thaksin's popularity to inflation, while 52.1 percent blamed corruption and 50.8 percent the unquelled violence in the country's deep south, which has claimed more than 350 lives in the past eight months.

Meanwhile, Thaksin's ruling Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Party started to losing popularity "in every region of the country" and the opposite Democrat has gained more support, reported the official Thai News Agency.

Still, the poll concluded, Thaksin and TRT enjoyed more support among constituency and were expected to win a second-term in the coming general election in January.

Winning out in the 2001 election with landslide victory, Thaksin and his party have led the country out of the economic difficulties left by the 1997 financial crisis and enjoyed high support among grassroots for remarkable economic improvement.

However, he and his cabinet have been under mounting media accusation of benefiting favored groups interests through national policies, which the government has vehemently denied.

Besides, his government has been under attacks from middle-class for less attention to human rights in the national campaign against drugs and the hunting of attackers of the southern violence.

The dissatisfaction resulted in a overwhelming victory of the opposite Democrat Apirak Kosayodhin winning out the August election of Bangkok governor, a post used to be controlled by TRT for years.

ompared with only 9 percent who say they want his second term to look a lot like his first term.

Source: Xinhua