Growth or Happiness? Thailand's coup could derail a tiger economy.

Byline: George Wehrfritz

When tanks rolled into Thailand's sprawling capital on Sept. 19, countless Bangkok dwellers celebrated the ouster of a leader many urbanites had come to despise. But what they perhaps didn't realize is that the coup d'etat that toppled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra also delayed the arrival of rumbling vehicles of another sort: hundreds of light-rail carriages.

Indeed, a massive planned expansion of Bangkok's rudimentary public-transit system is just one of the projects that could be sidetracked during military rule. "We're not [expecting] big moves in infrastructure," says Yiping Huang, a regional analyst at Citibank in Hong Kong. "The lack of a working government or Parliament makes it unlikely that we'll see an expansion of fiscal policies."

The investment-led boom many analysts had anticipated in Thailand next year is temporarily on hold. Initial optimism that Thaksin's departure might presage a return to economic normalcy looks premature in light of the mixed messages emanating from the country's new leaders. In one of his first pronouncements as junta-appointed interim prime minister, Surayud Chulanont told reporters last week: ''I will not focus that much on the GDP number but rather on the indicators of the people's happiness." Pushing through a new constitution and paving the way for democratic elections next year rightly top his to-do list. But his comments nonetheless heightened concerns of renewed protectionism and fresh initiatives to attain the self-sufficiency espoused by Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who at the depths of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis famously told his subjects: "It is not important to be an economic tiger."

Thaksin, in contrast, was all about making Thailand roar. With initiatives that the self-aggrandizing tycoon-turned-politician branded "Thaksinomics," his government pumped billions into Thailand's rural sector to seed village-level industry. That spurred a consumption-driven recovery and made the country one of the region's top performers since he took power in 2001. Back in January he opened what was to have been a dramatic second act: Thailand Mega-Projects.

Much like Taiwan's much-ballyhooed Six-Year National Development Plan, Thaksin envisioned sweeping modernizations. His ...