Soon after arriving in Bangkok earlier this week, I knew that Thai PM Ahbisit Vijayjiva was in trouble. Not because I spotted several of his election campaign posters with moustaches scribbled on his mug, or with tree branches poked up his larger-than-life nostrils. Not because his leading competition is a very pretty young woman with expensive and savvy image handlers, Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of Thaksin ("She's my clone," Thaksin has, helpfully, told the Thai press).

No, I knew that Ahbisit was in trouble when my new friend--let's call him Suphat--told me he was planning to vote for this guy, Chuvit Kamolsivit:

Chuvit is the protest candidate in this Thai election, which takes place on July 2. He's certainly the most colorful figure. His poster campaign reminds me a lot of my pal Long Hair in Hong Kong, except that Long Hair is an ideologue, a committed socialist and Chuvit is...well, for all the juicy details, you should check this excellent rundown by Australian academic Chris Baker.

The short version is that Chuvit's made a fortune in Bangkok soap massage parlors, i.e. bubble bath brothels. His campaign message is simple: He's against corruption. Chuvit is an expert on the topic of corruption, because he had to pay the Bangkok police millions to keep his businesses open and running.

Right now, Bangkok has a real circus feel to it. Normally, when you ride down the streets, the only advertising images you see are commercial or nationalist in message--enormous posters of King Bhumibol and his family.

But now and for the next couple of weeks, every road, every corner, every blank space (except for the area around the King's palace) is plastered with long vinyl flat banners plugging the numerous candidates and parties that are trying to grab some of the 375 constituency seats and 125 party seats in Thailand's parliament.

The Thai system somewhat mimics the British one, with a small difference. Every Thai citizen gets two votes, one for their local Parliamentary rep, and another for a party. The election system, also, is British in its regulatory zeal. Campaign budgets are so strictly limited under the law that TV or radio media buys are impossible (I think they even may be prohibited, as they are in Hong Kong's election races).

And so, the Thai campaign theater takes to the streets. The image on your posters is the image that voters take to the polls. And so far, at least in Bangkok, the king of the posters is Chuvit.

To give you some context, here are some of the standard-issue politico posters I have spotted along Bangkok streets this week:

Contrast these with Chuvit's greatest hits (some with rough translations, courtesy of my not-quite-English speaking friend Song):

(Check the detail: he's shaking his pit bull's hand. Song says that the message of the poster is "trust"--you can trust your dog more than a politican these days)

(The government, says Chuvit, is steering the wrong way!)

(My personal favorite! Talk about a twist on the traditional politician baby-kissing. Chuvit's message is: the baby's diaper needs a change, and so does the Thai government).

Chuvit recently sat for an interview in English with a reporter from the Bangkok Post. If the reporter seems a bit tentative in his questioning, well, there's a reason. Two years ago, in the middle of an interview with another reporter, Chuvit decided he didn't like the journo's line of questioning, so he punched him.

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But surely, I hear you saying (or thinking) Bangkok's Chuvit-mania is mere sideshow, a down-the-card distraction to the main bout between incumbent Ahbisit and Thaksin's proxy Yingluck Shinawatra.

And I'd think so too. Except that Suphat, a well educated and hip middle class professional (whose brother is one of Ahbisit's top ministers!) told me he was planning to vote for Chuvit. And--to my astonishment--the Issan husband of my friend Song (a Red Shirt sympathizer) also told me the same thing! Chuvit love leaps across class boundaries.

Now, saying that you're going to vote for the outrageous, ex-criminal, maverick opposition candidate doesn't mean you're actually going to do it. Chuvit's poll numbers are running on the low side. There are three weeks still until the Thai election, plenty of time for anything to happen, for voters to turn to a "serious" candidate at the last minute

But the success of the Chuvit poster series with the Bangkok public means that people, at least in the capital, aren't going along with the official program. They're fed up with the corruption and lies from all the big guns in Thailand's political establishment: Red Shirts (yes, they're establishment, too), Yellow Shirts, Democrats, royalists. I believe that if Thailand is going to move forward, they do have to re-start the political clock at zero, and maybe a declaration that it's time to throw all the bums out is the first step.