Political bickering and bargaining has continued unabated in the past few weeks following HM the King's advice to the country's top courts to intervene and resolve the political deadlock. In fact, there haven't been any real sacrifices apart from the resignation this week of one of the four embattled election commissioners, General Charupat Ruangsuwan. This alone is obviously not enough to restore political normalcy in the country.

The result is that Thailand is being held hostage by uncompromising politicians as well as dogmatic election commissioners, three of whom remain in office despite unrelenting public criticism of their conduct and the Constitutional and Supreme Administrative courts' nullification of the April 2 general election and related polls on grounds that they were unconstitutional.

The nullification of the election by the judiciary, which rarely intervenes in the political scene, means that a fresh election is supposed to be scheduled. Given that the incumbent commissioners were responsible for the annulled election, which cost more than Bt2 billion in taxpayers' money, the country's top courts, including the Supreme Court, insist that all of them must quit to allow the appointment of new commissioners to take charge of the new election.

Yet, all three remaining members of the commission have remained defiant, indicating that they will stay in their jobs to complete their work. These commissioners held a meeting on Monday with the Thai Rak Thai and some 20 other small and unheard-of parties to fix October 22 as the new election date.

All three former opposition parties were absent from the meeting, suggesting that they did not endorse the move.

The following day, presidents of the country's top three courts held consultations and the secretary-general of the Supreme Court subsequently declared the new election date illegal.

In hindsight, the country has already wasted lots of precious time since late February in settling the ongoing political conflict, which was essentially triggered by the controversial tax-free sale of Shin Corp to Temasek Group of Singapore by caretaker premier Thaksin Shinawatra's family for approximately Bt73 billion.

In hopes of ending the conflict quickly, Thaksin chose to dissolve the House of Representatives on February 24, instead of resigning from public office, and to call a snap election. That solution turned out to be far worse than originally expected and the conflict escalated to new heights. All three former opposition parties boycotted the snap polls.

The country's future now hangs in the balance, with the date for a new election still uncertain nearly three months after the House dissolution.

In other words, the political deadlock has now advanced to the second stage following nullification of the April 2 and related elections. Unless the remaining three election commissioners change their minds and quit as soon as possible, there will be no election and no new Parliament any time soon.

As a consequence there will be no new prime minister, only a caretaker as is the case now, and no one knows for how long.

In addition, the senatorial election, which took place in April, will remain incomplete - again, no one knows for how long - since only about half of the 200 senators-elect have been endorsed by the Election Commission. The law requires the Senate to have all 200 senators elected before it can convene its first session.

In short, the country's 70-year-old parliamentary system has been paralysed by the three people who insist on staying in office at the Election Commission. Their decision has effectively left the country rudderless, in the absence of both the upper and lower houses of Parliament, for an unnecessarily long period.

 Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

 nop1122@yahoo.com