Or is the NLA going to grill the prime minister and his Cabinet in response?

Praphan Khunmee, a member of the NLA, said its members would not censure the prime minister or try to kick him out of office or try to remove his government altogether.

"We are going to address the assembly in a constructive way, in order to stimulate the government and encourage it to work with more efficiency," he said.

However, he said the Surayud government does not seem to have achieved any concrete results and has put in a lacklustre performance. Much worse, Praphan added, the government has allowed remnants of the old regime to regain strength.

Surayud will use today's address to allay fears over the direction of his government, which has faced widespread criticism for its poor performance. There has been pressure on the prime minister from the Council for National Security to reshuffle poorly-rated Cabinet members.

Meechai Ruchuphand, the president of the NLA, said he would let assembly members freely discuss the performance of the Surayud government without employing any strict format to the debate.

But he said if there are too many members seeking to make comments, then he might need to restrict the time that each would be allowed to speak.

"After the prime minister has completed his address, then we shall allow the members of the assembly to express their opinions," he said.

Prasong Soonsiri, a member of the assembly, said that about 60 members have already signed up to make comments on the government's performance after Surayud's address.

He said he might be the first to speak because he has been asked by other members to do so.

He said, tongue-in-cheek, that he would praise the government's performance in all matters.

Prasong said the government should be generous with time by allowing the debate to last two days instead of one.

Wallop Thankhananurak said the debate would start with general affairs before moving on to economics, politics, security and other emergency issues.

He said each assembly member would be allowed to speak for about 10 minutes.

"During the debate, the government can interrupt to clarify to the assembly if the issues are relevant to it," he said.

Banharn Silapa-archa, the leader of the Chat Thai Party, said the prime minister should listen to assembly members because he might not know what Cabinet colleagues have been doing over the past six to seven months.

He could use the information from the NLA debate to make necessary adjustments and improve the performance of the government.