Thaksin and other Thai Rak Thai leaders, however, remain undeterred. They believe the situation will improve once the embattled prime minister is returned to power by the April 2 poll. This is nothing but narrow and one-dimensional thinking. True, the majority of voters who cast their ballots on that day will vote with an intention to give Thaksin a new mandate, but that will not restore his legitimacy. To begin with, it's essentially an uncontested election.

A virtual "one-party" election is technically allowed under the Constitution, provided that the sole party contesting has enough support nationwide to prove its worth. This is not the case with Thai Rak Thai, which surely faces an impossible task in winning the required minimum of 20 per cent of support from eligible voters in certain constituencies. The 20 per cent rule will be invoked for every constituency where only one party is running, and it should prove to be an insurmountable barrier in major anti-Thaksin zones like southern Thailand.

To get around the 20 per cent rule, Thai Rak Thai needs competitors in all these areas. Not surprisingly, allegations have been flooding in about "hired candidates" running for small parties. Over the weekend, Suthep Thaugsuban, secretary-general of the Democrat Party, detailed how key figures of Thai Rak Thai were busying implementing a scheme to beat the rule. Some little-known figures were presented before the media and they "confessed" that they had been offered money to run in the snap election.

Shrugging off the ruling party's threat to launch civil and

criminal suits, Suthep insisted he had evidence to prove the alleged election fraud and challenged Thai Rak Thai to bring the case to court. He claimed that two key Thai Rak Thai leaders had met at the party's headquarters with four others to devise ways to help a group of small political parties field candidates in constituencies in four central and 14 southern provinces. According to Suthep, the problem for Thai Rak Thai was that all the MP candidates to be fielded by these small parties had to be members of those parties for at least 90 days prior to the application. As a result, the plan was to replace the names of about 500 real members of political parties with new ones so that they would be eligible to run in the election. Suthep also alleged that a computer disc containing the Election Commission's database of political party members was provided to operators of the scheme so names could be changed electronically.

The election is already plagued with enough major trouble without the alleged fraud. If Suthep's allegations are true, the poll will cripple Thailand rather than free it from the present stalemate. Coincidence or not, what characterises this snap election are trademarks of Thaksin's rule - the alleged use of "nominees", the tendency to use money to solve all problems in complete disregard for the consequences and the mentality that legal barriers are there to be breached, not respected.

The election is being widely opposed because many people fear it will only exacerbate the root cause of the current crisis - Thaksin and his near absolute power. Now Thai Rak Thai is alleged to have given the Thai public more reasons to be afraid of this poll, which is looking more and more likely to trap Thailand in a vicious cycle. But the biggest irony of all is that Thaksin, in trying to prove to Thais why they shouldn't fear him, that they can still trust him, is doing something that will bring the exact opposite results.