REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BANGKOK -- Banharn Silpa-archa, Thailand's 21st prime minister, passed away peacefully at Bangkok?s Siriraj Hospital before dawn Saturday at the age of 83.

Mr Banharn was sent to the hospital on Thursday after he could not breath properly following outbreak of severe allergy and asthma.

He was admitted immediately at the hospital?s intensive care unit due to his critical condition.

Doctors at the hospital said Mr Banharn passed away at 4.42 am.

He last appeared in public on April 13, the first day of Songkran festival celebrations, when he presided over the opening of a building in his hometown of Suphan Buri province.

Mr Banharn decided to leave a secondary school in Bangkok when the Second World War broke out and joined his elder brother in establishing a construction firm and set up his own firm selling chlorine to the state-run Provincial Waterworks Authority which made him wealthy.

He continued his study after entering politics and completed a master?s degree at Bangkok?s Ramkhamhaeng University.

Mr Banharn was appointed a member of the National Legislative Assembly 1973 and became a senator two years later. He was first elected a member of the Lower House representing his hometown of Suphan Buri in 1976 and was elected MP for the province in every general election since then.

In 1994, he became leader of the now dissolved Chart Thai Party.

He became Thailand's 21st prime minister in 1995 and stepped down the following year following a string of scandals and a bruising no-confidence debate in parliament.

Mr Banharn is survived by his wife and three children -- a son and two daughters.

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