Does Thailand have a real chance of a morning after?

The lyrics to Maureen McGovern's song "The Morning After" from the movie "The Poseidon Adventure" released in 1973 were inside my head when the verdict of the Constitution Court was read on Tuesday. It was to calm my nerves and lessen my fear. I was petrified by the political black hole left by the verdict.

After the sense of relief for many, euphoria and celebration for some, anger and bitterness for others, we are forced to come to terms with a perplexing and extremely complex reality and the phalanx of questions that follow. It is specious to expect the law to solve our political strife; it is mad to think we are looking at the beginning of the end of our affliction. Bad just does not get good in a jiffy, no matter how hard we wish.

The country is treading unknown territories, both legally and politically. There are no precedents to our current political and electoral vacuum. The Constitution drafters certainly did not foresee the question of political succession of power of the executive branch as a potentially complicated matter. In the US, the rules of presidential succession are clear. The 20th and 25th amendments of the Constitution and the Presidential Succession Law of 1947 provide for detailed procedures and requirements as well as an order of succession ranking in case the president cannot perform his duties as stipulated by law. Under the British system, such guidelines are also laid out with clarity.

But our political situation is so plagued with ambiguities. We have a de facto caretaker prime minister - a former deputy prime minister who survived the purge. But he himself is not an elected MP, nor is he a constituency MP, whereas the current Constitution stipulates that the prime minister has to come from an election. Does the law apply to him in this case?

Maybe somebody sensed there could be a problem because on Wednesday the caretaker premier convened his reduced Cabinet of 23 rather than 35 members to elect a new prime minister. What happened was that the meeting elected the caretaker prime minister as the uh … caretaker prime minister. But that is not quite the end of the riddle. This remaining Cabinet: is it still qualified as a Cabinet when its leader was removed in his capacity as the prime minister and head of the Cabinet?

And there remains this nagging question of whether or not the caretaker prime minister - granted for the sake of argument that he could legally hold that position - will have the authority to dissolve Parliament as the measure of last resort if the situation in the House, for whatever reason, proves untenable to select/elect a new prime minister to the liking of the PPP-led former coalition, or whatever we call it?

Even more farcical is the question of whether or not such a caretaker prime minister has the authority to officially receive the royal command to open the extraordinary session of Parliament planned for December 8.

If you think these conundrums are nightmares, hold your breath for the following scenarios.

It is the aim of the three coalition parties who are sticking tightly together out of their common distrust and dislike of the Democratic Party, and for other personal or professional reasons, to have their remaining 253 representative MPs registered with their respective new parties, which have been set up for a good period of time already. It is unlikely that the Election Commission can delay the ratification of the affiliation of these MPs into the new parties. At this writing, it is expected that the extraordinary session of Parliament can be convened at the earliest opportunity this coming Monday to select/elect a new prime minister. There are six candidates and top of the list is Chalerm Yoobamrung.

Should we laugh or cry if this comes to pass?

But wait, of these six candidates, all are constituency MPs. Should the Constitution Court rule, whenever that may be, that constituency MPs must be disqualified per the Tuesday ruling, then we go back to square one - that is, the search for a new prime minister begins again.

Veteran Banharn Silapa-Archa put it succinctly after the court ruling, that if we continue down this constitutional road, we will see more, not fewer, proxy prime ministers, proxy MPs, proxy governments and all kinds of other proxy pooh bah. The picture, then, looks even more dreadfully intolerable than it has been.

If we take a step back and reconsider the possibility of an interim national unity government, which would stay in office for a finite period - to allow the political and legal dust to settle, to amend the Constitution in a way that does not stir up the ire of suspicious constituents (that it is being done out of self-serving purposes), to allow the country time to recover, and to put the country in truly able hands to tackle the litany of challenges facing us amid an extreme global crisis - then general elections can be called within the specific time frame set out.

There is one problem with this scenario though: there is no mobilising force or factor to make it happen. There is also the question of the possibility of a non-elected person heading a national unity government, which will require a constitutional amendment. How that can get done legitimately remains a murky prospect.

To add a Thai flavour to this nouveau national unity dish, some even suggest a rotating premiership. Here I must take a break. "Choke me in the shallow waters before I get too deep", as Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians sing into my ear.

On a note of consolation, after all that has been said and done, it is evident that one important requisite of democracy and successful representative government is the public sensibility toward active engagement. Needless to say, it is happening in our country. And with that one glimmer of hope, I will hold on to the notion expressed in McGovern's lyric that there's got to be a morning after.

Better be soon, though.