Tens of thousands of police and military personnel, including anti-riot squads, have been put on standby to deal with any eventualities. Despite the best efforts of authorities to bar "organised" protesters from upcountry from converging on Bangkok, thousands of demonstrators are expected to turn up at Sanam Luang and other places in the capital today in the hopes of putting pressure on the Constitution Tribunal to rule in favour of the parties they support.

Given the volatility of the situation, some people have suggested that the Constitution Tribunal should place a greater emphasis on political considerations rather than focusing on purely legal questions and dissolve both parties regardless of the substance of the evidence at hand or the relative severity of wrongdoing. Those who subscribe to this line of thought argue that this would head off potentially violent protests as neither party could be seen as benefiting at the expense of the other.

These cynical people also confess that their reason for advocating this so-called even-handed approach to ward off street violence is that they are afraid some rogue generals would use any untoward incident as a pretext to stage a fresh coup and grab power for themselves. But such an act would constitute an unforgivable betrayal of public trust and treason.

The Constitution Tribunal should disregard all this nonsense and concentrate only on the legal aspects of this case.

The interim Surayud government and the CNS are expected to keep the peace by strictly enforcing relevant laws to protect unarmed demonstrators who have the right of freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, and, when necessary, to suppress violent protesters bent on harming others.

Based on this assumption - that the Surayud government and the military junta will maintain law and order - the Constitution Tribunal should make its decision in this case without fear or favour.

Whatever ruling the Constitution Tribunal hands down, it will have far-reaching effects on the country's political future.

It must be remembered in no uncertain terms that this country needs the Constitution Tribunal to have a positive impact on the country's destiny as a functional democracy based on the rule of law - not on the politics of fear or, worse, the cynical manipulation of the political situation by certain overly ambitious military leaders.

That's why the Constitution Tribunal's judges must exercise their judgement wisely. Dissolving both the Thai Rak Thai and Democrat parties would completely decimate the current generation of politicians leaving a power vacuum that would enable the military to seize a dominant role in national politics, which would stunt democracy as we know it.

There is no chance in the world that democracy-loving people in this country would allow that to happen. Examples abound of overbearing generals coveting high political offices who ended up in the scrap-heap of history as enemies of democracy, tyrannical leaders and perpetrators of fraud and corruption. In a modern democracy like ours, citizens must realise that the power of the people is absolute in a sovereign state. In other words, the sovereign power to govern comes from the people and all rulers exercise that power with the people's consent.

We as a people must not allow our political destiny as a democracy to be determined by covetous generals. Let it be known that citizens of a democracy are no longer political pawns that can be manipulated on the political chessboard by the powers-that-be.