No sooner had the middle-class elite, which led a two-month popular revolt to oust Thaksin, finished celebrating their initial victory in the campaign to rid Thai politics of Thaksin's corruption-prone leadership than the country found itself bogged down in another conundrum of democracy. Society is just now learning the hard lesson that there are numerous pitfalls along the road to political reform.

It is becoming obvious that Thaksin's decision not to head the new government after his Thai Rak Thai Party won the April 2 general election, which was boycotted by the main opposition parties, was part of a rearguard action to head off a possible violent confrontation with his political opponents. That would have likely meant a sudden end to his political career. Thaksin decided it would be better to take one step back and allow a cooling-off period, to let hostile feelings against him die down while he continues to pull strings from behind the scenes.

Meanwhile, the anti-Thaksin movement, led by the People's Alliance for Democracy - political activists, academics and civic leaders - is faced with a difficult choice of which road to take to political reform.

One path would be to turn a blind eye to the supposedly lesser evil of allowing the Election Commission (EC), which organised the seriously flawed general election, tainted as it was by alleged vote-buying and electoral fraud, to complete its sloppy job. In this scenario, the EC would pave the way for the new House to convene and elect a provisional prime minister to form a new government. The new government would then be expected to coordinate with the House and an independent constitutional drafting panel to implement amendments to the highest law of the land, to effect comprehensive political reform.

Once constitutional amendments agreeable to all sides have been promulgated by the House and new Senate, the provisional prime minister would dissolve the House again. That would pave the way for a fresh general election to produce a relatively clean, smoothly functioning government accountable to the people and responsive to their democratic aspirations and. All of this is based on the assumption that the constitutional amendments would do away with Thaksin's virtual domination of the country's political system.

The other road to political reform would be much more contentious, more complicated and certainly more time-consuming, but it is an approach that some constitutional-law experts are beginning to favour. Under this approach, the current EC, suspected of being biased in favour of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai, would be sacked and the outcome of the April 2 election declared null and void. A new, truly independent commission would be set up to organise a genuinely free and fair election, this time with the participation of all opposition parties, to produce a new House, provisional prime minister and government, which would implement constitutional reforms in coordination with an independent charter-drafting panel.

Each approach has its own merits and drawbacks. Presumably, either approach, if pursued in the right way and under circumstances conducive to progress, is capable of producing comprehensive political reform. But the problem is that Thailand, as a nation, cannot afford to remain rudderless much longer.

At some point in the near future, a dialogue must be initiated to enable key players in this ongoing conflict to exchange views and find a practical, mutually agreeable way out of this political paralysis. Any possible solution must seek to limit Thaksin's stranglehold on power. That much is clear. And this should serve as the basis for finding a way to put Thailand's democracy back on track to recovery.