Thai sex tsar cleans up for parliament

By Panarat Thepgumpanat
February 19, 2005

Bangkok - Thai sex tsar Chuvit Kamolvisit, elected to parliament this month, has cleansed himself ritually of his past and promised to be an honest legislator who will work for the interests of the people.

Smashing a mock bathtub with the sledgehammer he used as a campaign symbol of his aim to "smash the castles of corruption", Chuvit urged his new colleagues to stop calling him "Tycoon Tub," a nickname he got from his chain of six massive massage parlours.

"Tycoon Tub is dead," Chuvit shouted on Friday.
He stepped into a coffin, lay down, then emerged to wash his hands in a Buddhist monk's bowl to illustrate he was reborn a new man no longer associated with the sex business which made him a very rich man.

"I apologise to the Thai public for the business I did in the past that might have damaged some people," Chuvit said.

"But I never evaded tax or used my drivers or maids as my nominees" for wealth, he said, referring to a charge Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra faced four years ago.

Thaksin, who was cleared of the charge by the constitutional court in 2001, won another landslide victory at the Feb 6 poll.

Chuvit, who was elected for the opposition Chart Thai, said he had sold his massage parlours and was now in the hotel and real estate business.

A 43-year-old accountant who graduated from one of Thailand's top universities, Chuvit made his fortune in the sex industry, one of the few which emerged unhurt from Asia's 1997/98 economic financial crisis.

After a series of publicity stunts to expose corruption, a short jail term and a kidnapping he blames on bent policemen, he entered politics last year with a creditable showing in elections for the post of governor of Bangkok.

Chuvit pledged on Friday to take his battle against corruption to parliament.

"I swear to all sacred holy spirits they can curse me to bankruptcy if I cheat this country," he said.

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