As long as no incriminating evidence is produced and no lawsuit is formally filed against him in connection with alleged corruption and other crimes, globe-trotting Thaksin can be expected to continue his devious attempts to discredit the interim Surayud government and the military junta that ousted him.

One cannot stop Thaksin from behaving the way he does. However, there is no good reason why the Surayud government and the CNS should encourage Thaksin and help him achieve his objectives by being so sensitive to provocation and taunting aimed at eliciting the kinds of reactions that will portray the government and the military council in a negative light.

The reactions from the government and the CNS, which are more often than not overreactions, have delivered easy victories to Thaksin in the expertly-conducted campaign of psychological warfare that he has been launching from foreign capitals.

Instead of taking the initiative to clean up politics, like they said they would, by cutting off Thaksin's tentacles of power, the government and the CNS wait on hands and knees for their next chance to respond to Thaksin's latest trick like monkeys trained to dance to a tune.

They not only lose the opportunity to take the initiative, but they also become defensive and appear very confused in the eyes of members of the Thai public who are baffled by an obvious lack of communication between the vacillating government and some overbearing members of the military's top brass.

The Surayud government and the CNS may have enjoyed high approval ratings from the urban middle class in Bangkok and major cities around the country to begin with but they cannot afford to take such support for granted. Unless they deliver on their pledge to uproot the culture of corruption and deceit that Thaksin exploited to gain unparalleled patronage in society, the middle-class support may yet erode.

To complicate matters even further, precious little has been done to educate the rural masses about Thaksin's dishonest use of populist policies, vote-buying and other fraudulent practices to achieve virtually absolute political power, which he then proceeded to abuse for his own selfish gain. Four months after Thaksin was ousted from power, his political base in the countryside remains largely intact.

The divide between the urban middle class and the rural masses remains as wide as ever.

National reconciliation will be impossible as long as Thaksin is allowed to stay beyond the reach of the law for the long list of crimes that the interim government and the military council allege that he committed.

Given the fact that in the eyes of the international community, the CNS is still seen as a usurper that seized power from the democratically-elected Thaksin regime through unconstitutional means, and Surayud's administration is seen as a sorry excuse for an effective government, the deposed prime minister may yet gain an upper hand in the court of world opinion.

With the government and the military junta continuing to struggle to achieve a semblance of calm and normalcy, the question on everybody's mind now is whether the government and the military council have what it takes to deliver on their promises, or has the people's trust been misplaced?

The government and the CNS must establish a smooth working relationship and toughen their resolve to put the ongoing political disturbance under control. If they are unable to accomplish this, the chances of them making good on their promise to restore full democracy to the country through a free and fair election by the end of the year may look increasingly a remote possibility.