Thailand's grumpy, food-loving PM defies critics

By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK (Reuters) - In seven months of turbulent rule, the only thing that has floored Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej so far has been dodgy Lao cooking.

The pugnacious 73-year-old politician has resisted months of street protests, a slew of probes against his party and government, a hostile media, disobedient generals and sniping from the country's revered king.

"I will not quit," Samak vowed in a nationwide radio address on Thursday, defying thousands of protesters barricaded inside his official compound for 10 days in a bid to force him out.

Nobody knows how the crisis will end but Samak insists that, as Thailand's democratically elected leader, he will not bow to a "mob", as he calls the People's Alliance for Democracy

(PAD).

"He's a grumpy old man and he does what he likes," said Graham Catterwell, a retired analyst who has followed the country's fractious politics for three decades.

"His view is -- I'm the prime minister and I want to stay prime minister, and bugger off to anyone else."

The combative right-winger has followed a controversial path to power.