Not necessarily. But politicians may now think twice - or be forced to come up with even cleverer tricks before trying to cheat in order to win elections.

Dr Montri Chenvidkarn, a political science expert, said: "We could see that Abhisit Vejjajiva and Chuan Leekpai of the Democrat Party took the verdicts seriously enough, although the Democrats were spared. Both signalled, with a sense of maturity, that the Democrats would have to become more cautious in the political game."

The Tribunal judges took turns to read out the verdicts on five political parties in marathon proceedings that lasted 11 hours. They told of corruption, nepotism and cronyism in the Thai Rak Thai Party before handing down harsh verdicts that amounted to political capital punishment.

The message was simple: Political parties that cheat in elections will be dissolved. And their executive members have to bear collective responsibility, otherwise in future they might cheat to win by relying on sacrificial lambs that can be dispensed with.

But when it comes to the next election, can the Democrats continue to adopt gentlemanly conduct to compete against the remnants of Thai Rak Thai in the North and Northeast? In these strongholds of the former ruling party, and elsewhere to a lesser degree, money politics and all kinds of dirty tactics deployed to win votes are hardly likely to change.

On the contrary, Chaturon Chaisang, Thai Rak Thai's ousted acting leader, has not shown the slightest sign of repentance in the face of Wednesday's verdicts. There have been no signals whatsoever from Chaturon and other die-hard Thai Rak Thai members that they will quietly re-evaluate their actions or find ways to improve themselves. Instead, they have vowed to continue to fight a lost cause, protesting about the legitimacy of the Constitution Tribunal or the use of a revolutionary decree to bar Thai Rak Thai executives from politics for five years.

So far, we have not seen any key members of Thai Rak Thai come out to admit their mistakes, although the evidence against them in the Tribunal ruling was very strong.

Even when the case against General Thamarak Issarangura over his contact with representatives of a small party at the Defence Ministry became public last year, Thai Rak Thai failed to hold a meeting to discuss the matter. This gave the impression to the Constitution Tribunal judges that Thai Rak Thai did not care at all about the rule of law.

If the judges were to punish Thamarak and Pongsak Ruktapongpaisal alone for hiring small parties to run in the election, this would leave out possible involvement by other executives. In a prudent decision, the judges punished all 111 executive members - to set a precedent for collective responsibility.

But Somchai Preechasilpakul, dean of Chiang Mai University's Faculty of Law, argued that the Constitution Tribunal's rulings failed to set a clear line to separate guilty verdicts by a political party and its executive members.

"It is clear that Thai Rak Thai's executive members committed election fraud, but there was no evidence to say that the party as an institution was guilty, too," he said yesterday.

"I'm not sure whether, from now on, it can be interpreted that a political party has to take responsibility for the activities of its executive members," he said.

Somchai believed the argument that politicians would think twice about their future behaviour held no merit. Any effect from the Constitution Tribunal verdicts was likely to be short-lived, he thought.

"Any political party that emerges on the scene through an election can stay on as long as it does not become too arrogant or make a move to hijack the entire system that is in place," he said.

Former party chief Thaksin Shinawatra, speaking through his lawyer Noppadon Pattama, signalled that he accepted the Tribunal's rulings. But he could not help issue a muted protest by saying the verdicts would be subject to broad analysis and study for generations to come.

Again, Thaksin and his fellow Thai Rak Thai members have yet to concede that their party committed irregularities. They only stand firm with the same argument that they fight for democracy and justice.

The Political Desk

The Nation