effect was that Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh resigned under pressure on 6 November 1997, succeeded by opposition leader Chuan Leekpai. The second Leekpai government, in office from November 1997 to February 2001, tried to implement economic reforms based on IMF-guided neo-liberal capitalism. It pursued strict fiscal policies (keeping interest rates high and cutting government spending), enacting 11 laws it called "bitter medicine" and critics called "the 11 nation-selling laws". The Thai government and its supporters maintained that with these measures, the Thai economy improved. In 1999, Thailand had a positive GDP growth rate for the first time since the crisis. Many critics, however, mistrusted the IMF and maintained that government-spending cuts harmed the recovery. Unlike economic problems in Latin America and Africa, they asserted, the Asian financial crisis was born in the private sector and the IMF measures were inappropriate. The positive growth rate in 1999 was because the country's GDP had gone down for two consecutive years, as much as −10.5 percent in 1998 alone. In terms of the baht, it was not until 2002 (in dollar terms, not until 2006) that Thailand would regain its 1996 GDP. An additional 1999 loan from the Miyazawa Plan made the question of whether (or to what extent) the Leekpai government helped the Thai economy controversial. Recent economic history (2001-present) An indirect effect of the financial crisis on Thai politics was the rise of Thaksin Shinawatra. In reaction to the government's economic policies, Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai Party won a landslide victory over Leekpai's Democrat Party in the 2001 general election and took office in February 2001. Although weak export demand held the GDP growth rate to 2.2 percent in the first year of his administration, the first Thaksin Shinawatra government performed well from 2002 to 2004 with growth rates of 5.3, 7.1 and 6.3 percent respectively. His policy was later called Thaksinomics. During Thaksin's first term, Thailand's economy regained momentum and the country paid its IMF debt by July 2003 (two years ahead of schedule). Despite criticism of Thaksinomics, Thaksin's party won another landslide victory over the Democrat Party in the 2005 general election. The official economic data related to Thanksinomics reveals that between 2001 and 2011, Isan's GDP per capita more than doubled to US$1,475, while, over the same period, GDP in the Bangkok area rose from US$7,900 to nearly US$13,000. Thaksin's second term was less successful. On 26