It is sad that Thais and their democratic aspirations should be reduced to mere bargaining chips for use by an embattled Thaksin and his cohorts to ward off imminent political demise, after an Election Commission (EC) investigation panel implicated senior Thai Rak Thai executives for serious electoral fraud. If upheld by the Constitution Court, these charges could result in the party's dissolution and a potentially fatal blow to Thaksin's career.

But in this political climate characterised by wholesale corruption of our democratic institutions, matters tend to take twists and turns for the worse as the result of sordid bargaining in the corridors of power.

After much vacillation, the EC finally yielded to public pressure to let due process run its course and forwarded the case against Thai Rak Thai to the Office of the Attorney-General for scrutiny.

But the EC, whose integrity has been compromised by its inexplicable servile attitude towards Thaksin, dropped a bombshell by recommending dissolution of the opposition Democrats - Thailand's longest-established political party - plus three obscure political parties along with Thai Rak Thai. The EC recommendations to dissolve the five parties were agreed to by a vetting panel urgently set up by the Office of the Attorney-General on Tuesday. The attorney-general has yet to decide whether to endorse the findings and submit them to the Constitution Court.

Each of the five parties marked for elimination stands accused of violating Article 66 of the Political Parties Act of 1998, which categorises wrongdoing based on the impact of the negative consequences on the country's democracy, the rule of law, national security and public morality.

Thai Rak Thai is accused of persuading the three obscure parties to field candidates in constituencies where the ruling party's candidates would otherwise run unchallenged, in order to get around the rule requiring them to garner at least 20 per cent of all available votes. The three little-known parties are accused of falsifying party membership data, making otherwise-unqualified candidates eligible to run in the April 23 repeat elections.

The charges against the Democrats remain sketchy but are said to include hiring candidates of small parties to expose Thai Rak Thai's alleged electoral fraud, its decision to boycott the April 2 general election, allegedly conspiring with anti-Thaksin protesters to try to overthrow the government, persuading party supporters to cast "no" votes and inciting crowds to prevent candidates to register in Songkhla.

It is the cruellest of ironies that the Democrats, the very whistleblowers who exposed alleged election fraud by senior Thai Rak Thai executives, should themselves stand accused of election fraud, most of which is not supported by hard evidence. What evidence exists has more to do with the party's political stance than with dishonest intent. But that did not stop the EC from drawing a moral equivalence between the two.

The Constitution Court will soon be asked make separate rulings on whether any of the parties should actually be disbanded. The eventual decisions will be influenced in no small part by the court of public opinion. A ruling for dissolution of Thai Rak Thai and the Democrats could plunge the Kingdom into chaos, because of the resultant power vacuum, and possible violence.

Instead of being asked to deal with the simple task of punishing one major party implicated in serious electoral fraud backed by strong evidence, the stakes have now been raised. The Constitution Court and Thai society are being asked to make an impossible choice: Punish Thai Rak Thai's alleged election fraud while simultaneously destroying the whole party system or let the ruling party of scot-free, in order to preserve a functional political system. The political crisis will likely drag on.