The Democrat, Chat Thai and Mahachon parties had been seeking in vain some sort of agreement from the incumbent Thaksin administration that their participation in the general election would be conditional on Thai Rak Thai promising to make extensive revisions to the 1997 Constitution. The main purpose of the proposal was to curb the kind of wholesale abuse of authority that has allegedly been committed by Thaksin throughout these past five years.

Under that proposal, the Thai Rak Thai Party, widely expected to return to power with a substantial parliamentary majority, was supposed to provide unstinting support for a planned constitutional-reform process. And that process was to have been implemented with the active participation of civil society, as well as of a broad cross-section of Thai society.

Once constitutional reforms had been completed, Thaksin would be required to dissolve the House of Representatives again, in order to pave the way for yet one more snap election, this time under a revised Constitution designed specifically to ensure that all of the checks-and-balances mechanisms of Thailand's democracy functioned smoothly and the way that they were intended to. This would at least theoretically prevent corruption at the highest levels and, if necessary, remove tyrannical leaders from office.

But Thaksin's eventual rejection of the entire idea was only to be expected and for reasons that are quite obvious. After all, the telecom tycoon-turned-politician is the embodiment of the worst possible malady that could afflict a fledgling democracy like Thailand. An autocratic leader who bankrolled his way to the highest political office by pandering to the unprincipled wants and needs of the attention-deficient, politically apathetic masses, who then proceeded to maximise personal gain at the expense of public interest.

To make sure that his blatant abuse of power proceeded unencumbered by the inconvenience of scrutiny by several constitutionally mandated watchdog organisations, Thaksin set out to undermine and weaken them all with a wholesale buy-up of the Senate, which is responsible for all watchdog appointments.

The prime minister's heavy-handed manipulation of these "independent" agencies rendered them ineffective as checks and balances against the possibility of the government wielding too much power. And this disruption in the balance of power has also had a corrosive effect on the rule of law, made worse by Thaksin's aggressive campaign to roll back civil liberties, including such rights as the freedom of expression and of the press.

The decision by the Democrat Party and its allies to remove themselves from consideration in the scheduled general election may be understandable, even though it is not at all consistent with normal democratic parliamentary procedure, in which political parties are required to settle their differences at the ballot box. But they had done everything possible to try to put the country's democracy, which has been so comprehensively derailed by Thaksin, back on track.

It may be true that an election boycott would intensify the already-dangerous trend of polarisation that is now occurring in Thai politics and which Thaksin started. It would also make it virtually impossible for the deepening conflict between the anti-Thaksin camp and the prime minister's many supporters to be resolved peacefully, let alone constitutionally, without first amending the charter.

Thaksin has only himself to blame. His arrogance of power, instinct for self-preservation and worsening paranoia have all combined to make it impossible for him to reach any sort of political compromise with the opposition through a parliamentary process.

The prime minister must now face the most fundamental, albeit unwritten, rule of democracy: a ruler derives his authority to rule from the people, and those people can take away what they have given.