It was reported in the press that these people wanted His Majesty to appoint a neutral prime minister of his choosing to replace Thaksin Shinawatra. His Majesty has done this three times during his 60-year reign.

Many equally mature and educated individuals have questioned the wisdom of appealing to His Majesty to diffuse the present political crisis. If, every time we have a political crisis, we run to His Majesty, how will our fledgling democracy ever grow strong and viable?

I believe there is a misunderstanding here that needs to be cleared up. The petition humbly requested His Majesty, in his wisdom, invoking his "barami", to consider the situation and guide his subjects, as he deems suitable. The petitioners would not presume to tell or ask His Majesty to interfere with the political process. His Majesty may choose to ask for opinions or information from his subjects, but what the King will do is entirely at his own discretion.

To understand and appreciate the action of the people presenting the missive to His Majesty, we must refer to Article 7 of the preamble of the present Constitution, which states: "Whenever no provision under this Constitution is applicable to any case, it shall be decided in accordance with the constitutional practice in the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of the State."

This sounds vague at best. However, if you really understand the Thai heart and mind, and fully appreciate Thai history, traditions and society, this article is quite ingenious. And it is there for every Thai citizen, not just "the elite" as the press has, unfortunately, labelled the petitioners. It provides for a temporary suspension of the Constitution or any law, in order to protect and preserve the Constitution.

The present "unforeseen situation", the way I understand it, is, the Thai people have catapulted into the highest political office an extremely intelligent, vastly wealthy, scheming and insatiable businessman. He has shown little social conscience and even less political integrity. He got to that office by two landslide elections. The wheels of that election machine were well oiled with his immense personal wealth. Once in the post of prime minister, he has behaved like a dictator - not a military dictator but a financial dictator of a country where most of the people are poor. He employed the best lawyers money could buy to find loopholes in our Constitution and laws, then proceeded to take advantage of these loopholes for his own enrichment - to the detriment of the country.

The Constitution writers did not foresee this situation. Maybe they should have. However, they perhaps had an intuition that, this being Thailand, someone with a Sri Thanonchai mentality could come along and undermine our Constitution yet again in a completely new and ingenious way. Hence Article 7.

The point is, an appeal was made. How His Majesty responds is entirely up to him. We will not know until and unless he makes his wishes known. He may choose to practice "wuwei", the way of the Chinese sage Chuangsu: allow nature to take its course and only act if and when absolutely necessary and the time is auspicious.

Wuwei is not inaction. It is a tremendous act of self-control by a person of integrity. Wuwei very often transforms a crisis into a new opportunity. (His Majesty has done this several times in the recent past; for example in the case of Khunying Jaruvan Maintaka). Practising wuwei requires compassion, patience and especially wisdom. These virtues the Thai people know His Majesty possesses.

Now, Thaksin is a brilliant businessman, master of every trick of the trade. He has demonstrated this by becoming immensely wealthy through his own efforts in a fairly short time. And he has done a great deal to help the poor; he has often focused his attention on people whom past governments have mostly neglected. So he is popular. But he has also done much more to enrich his family and his cronies and to consolidate his political power through undemocratic and unethical ways.

When called upon to account for his seemingly unscrupulous actions, Thaksin dissolves Parliament and calls for a new election. Rather than stand up and face Parliament and answer questions concerning his actions, and perhaps be impeached, he pulls everyone down with him, inviting chaos, without caring what all this will cost the country. And he then goes around the country, lecturing about democracy and how it is supposed to work.

There was no patriotic or altruistic or democratic reason for dissolving Parliament at this time, regardless of what Thaksin has said or will say. He panicked because he probably has things to hide. He created chaos to confuse those who cannot see through him. It was a diversionary tactic to cling on to power. And he is again relying on his vast financial resources to bring him back to rule this country, to become CEO of Thailand Ltd.

If he is re-elected, the majority of the people of this country still have much to learn about democracy and so they need this lesson. They need to realise that a politician like Thaksin does not make a good leader.

No written constitution is perfect, because the people who write them are human and fallible. There are loopholes in most legal documents. If the loopholes are discovered by patriotic, honourable statesmen then they will be filled by legal means. This is to prevent smart, self-serving politicians from exploiting the nation or destroying the Constitution. But some people will seek out loopholes in any law and exploit them for their personal benefit to the detriment of the country.

Article 7 of our Constitution is a kind of safety valve. Invoking it allows for precious time, while awaiting His Majesty's pleasure; time for emotions to cool down, for the Constitution to be temporarily suspended and protected from being destroyed. It gives every one of us a chance to pause and look inward and ask ourselves: what is it we really want? What are we prepared to sacrifice or give in exchange for a fuller democracy? What does the country need? How can we help? To ask ourselves what we can learn from Thaksin and his antics. Is he leading us in the direction we wish to go? Looking inward tells us who we are and where we stand and how to act. We do not all have to go to Sanam Luang. We can help His Majesty help us with our good intentions. We can pray. The Buddha said, and quantum physics has proven, everything is just energy in motion - and energy can be manifested in the manner we choose to act.

It is my hope that Thaksin will learn to be still and look inward. In my humble opinion he needs to look at hubris and greed and their consequences. He needs to understand the meaning of humility, gratitude and respect for others. He needs to know that the principles guiding the actions of a wise statesman and that of brilliant businessman are not the same.

Sumalee Viravaidya was a member of the charter-drafting committee of 1973-74.

Sumalee Viravaidya