A wishful thinker told me the other day that an early general election now appeared to be the best way to end the ongoing political upheaval.

To avoid triggering any further big risks for the country, Kanin Boonsuwan, who helped author the 1997 Constitution, believes that the best thing would be for Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont to receive full backing from Council for National Security (CNS) chairman General Sonthi Boonyaratglin to hold the next general election as early as mid-September.

This will effectively put an end to any further political uncertainty, especially over when Thailand will return to democracy.

The sooner the country has an elected government, the better its image will be in the eyes of the international community.

However, such an early election date will be possible only if the new constitution is well in place some time in late July or by the end of August at the latest, since the Election Commission needs at least a 45-day preparatory period for the new polls. This means the constitution-drafting body needs to finish its work even sooner so that there's enough time to hold a referendum on the new charter.

Yet the interim charter currently enforced by the CNS following its September 19 coup stipulates that the process of drafting and approving the new constitution must to be completed within 180 days of the charter-drafting body convening its first meeting, which it did on January 6.

If this deadline cannot be met, the CNS and the Cabinet are authorised to adopt a new

constitution based on previous charters with amendments they deem appropriate, and this constitution is to be enforced within 30 days.

In other words, there could be an early election regardless of the results of the charter-drafting process.

Kanin hopes that the latter will happen so that there is no need to hold the referendum, the results of which might further divide the country and lead to fresh chaos.

I share his opinion that the country has already been battered enough and should be spared any further big risk that might result from holding the referendum. Instead, the country should go straight to the polls so that we can have a new elected government without any further delay.

The performance of the  Surayud Chulanont interim government in its four months in office has already dashed early hopes that it would be a white knight coming to the country's rescue after the September 19 coup d'etat that ousted the Thaksin administration. Politically as well as economically, the immediate future is quite worrisome.

First, the lack of a proper Parliament as well as MPs, especially in upcountry and rural areas, has deprived the government of any political cushion and linkage with the rest of the country. Any discontent among the grass-roots population could soon be blown out of proportion due to this political gap.

Second, the economic outlook is worsening, with the Bank of Thailand already revising its GDP growth forecast for 2007 downwards to 4-5 per cent from 4.5-5.5 per cent previously.

The move followed an increase in political and economic uncertainties, marked by the New Year's Eve bombings and slowing domestic consumption due to declining consumer confidence.

After all, neither Thaksinocracy as we experienced it from 2001 to September 2006, nor coups - of which Thailand has already had 24, including unsuccessful ones - are good for the country's

democratic governance in the

long run.

Hence it would best for the September 19 coup leaders to quickly return sovereign power to the people by holding the general election sooner rather than later.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

 nop1122@yahoo.com