Hot Spots: Thailand.(hot spots)

The military-appointed government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, formed after Thaksin Shinawatra was unseated in a bloodless coup last September, has called a general election for December 23, which many people hope will return the country safely to civilian leadership and will end a year of political turmoil. The problem is that the new constitution, which Thai voters approved in August, instead of producing a strong and stable new civilian government, will encourage a return to the days when Thailand was notorious for its weak, multi-party coalition administrations, which enabled the royalist-military elite to pull strings from behind the scenes.

The new Charter, ordered by the military junta to be drawn up, is quite appropriately called an anti-Thaksin constitution because it is designed to make it difficult for any dominant majority party to emerge in the future and form a strong government, such as that of the deposed Thaksin Shinawatra. The 194-page document bends the voting system so that it favors smaller parties. It abolishes single-member constituencies and introduces party lists for four equal geographic areas in an effort to neutralize the demographic advantage Mr. Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party had in its heartland.

The new constitution calls for the all-elected Senate to be replaced by one that is half-appointed, no doubt to include candidates proffered by the military. A minimum of just one-fifth of all members of parliament is required to launch a motion of no-confidence in the government. This virtually ensures that the administrations to come will lead a precarious existence. The supporters of the new Charter say that this is necessary to boost checks and balances that were weakened by ex-PM Thaksin. In fact, though, the result will be a revival of the "managed democracy" practiced under leaders such as the ex-army chief Prem Tinsulanonda, who is currently the King's top adviser. The Charter also shifts responsibilities from the executive to the judiciary and allows judges to propose legislation, which clearly violates the basic principle of separation of powers.

The plebiscite approved the constitution with 56.69% "yes" votes while 41.37% rejected the legislation. Worse for the military proponents of the Charter, only 57.61% of the eligible voters showed up at the ballot boxes to declare themselves for or against the constitution, which is the 18th Thailand has had in 75 years of on-again-off again democracy. Any way one slices the outcome, therefore, it is hardly the solid mandate the men in uniform had been hoping for.

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The government had been hoping for a turnout of at least 60%. It had expected a much more decisive endorsement and it definitely did not want to see so many "no" votes, especially in the Thaksin heartland of the Northeast, where the percentage of those objecting to the new constitution reached 62%. The military insists that its intervention was necessary to drive out an administration which was headed by an authoritarian populist and riddled by corruption. It has seen to it that Mr. Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party was dissolved by a constitutional tribunal for misdeeds in the general elections held last year.

Mr. Thaksin and more than a hundred of his cronies were barred from politics for five years. In August, Thailand's Supreme Court issued arrest warrants for him and his wife on corruption charges, which will make it very ...