TIMELINE-Three years of political turmoil in Thailand

(Reuters) - Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra skipped bail and fled into exile in London on Monday, almost two years after his overthrow in a military coup.

Analysts said his decision could mean the beginning of the end of the political turmoil that has dogged Thailand's government and markets for the past three years.

-- 2005

* September: Sondhi Limthongkul, a disgruntled former business associate, starts the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), a street campaign dedicated to ousting Thaksin. Sondhi argues that Thaksin's huge parliamentary majority makes him corrupt.

-- 2006

* April 2: Thaksin wins a snap election designed to silence Sondhi's increasingly biting criticism, but the victory is undermined by an opposition boycott that renders the result void. Judges annul the entire poll a few weeks later.

* September 19: Military stages coup while Thaksin is at U.N. headquarters in New York. He then retreats into exile in London.

* October 1: Former army commander-in-chief Surayud Chulanont sworn in as interim prime minister.

-- 2007