Democrat faces hurdles

The opposition Democrat Party pushed yesterday to convene a special session of Parliament to elect a new prime minister, but the race to form Thailand's next government isn't over yet.

Pheu Thai Party, set up recently for former People Power Party (PPP) MPs, has refused to back off and is still battling for MPs' support in a bid to form the next administration.

Currently, the Democrat-led coalition appears to have a total of 242 MPs, including some former government MPs, but there is no certainty they will get that many votes when Parliament reconvenes to choose the next PM.

Party sources said efforts were being made to woo back former |government MPs who had agreed |to join the Democrat-led coali-|tion. 

Yet Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva remained hopeful as he and other party seniors paid courtesy calls yesterday on powerbrokers behind small political parties. They are due to visit more of their new allies today, including the 'Friends of Newin' faction formerly with the People Power Party.

An MP source in the faction headed by Newin Chidchob said Puea Thai Party, backed by ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra, had also re-sorted to new tactics to pressure |MPs to leave the Democrat-led coalition.

"In some constituencies in |northeastern provinces, villagers were asked to seal off the houses of MPs which have defected to the other camp [following the disbanding of ruling PPP]," the source said.

However, Puea Thai party has not named any potential candidate to be PM. Earlier, it said it would support a candidate from other coalition parties.

Mun Pattanothai, the acting deputy chief of the Puea Pandin, said yesterday MPs could vote in-dependently because his party had no resolution on the next government.

"We should wait for the vote on the choice of PM as nothing is certain as of now," he said.

Uraiwan Thienthong, from Pracharaj, a former government party, said she would welcome Abhisit as the new PM if the Democrat-led coalition succeeded in their bid.

However, analysts said Abhisit's chance of becoming the next PM would dwindle if there was a protracted power struggle, especially among the country's rural constituencies.

It also remains uncertain if the Constitution Court will be required to rule on the legal status of party-list MPs from disbanded parties prior to the start of the special House session to elect the new PM.

Due to the disbanding of PPP and two other government parties, the fate of a total of 34 party-list MPs now hangs in the balance. These MPs include Chai Chidchob, president of Parliament.

As of yesterday, the earliest date to convene the special House session is Thursday, as Chai has already submitted the request to convene the House session to His Majesty the King for endorsement.

Meanwhile, a group of acade-mics and non-government organisations said yesterday they would submit a petition to the King, asking for the formation of an interim government to resolve the political crisis.

Dr Arthit Urairat, president of Rangsit University, said the disbanding of political parties has created legal obstacles as far as party-list and constituency MPs were concerned so there would be a political "vacuum".

He said the Parliament president, for example, may not have the authority to open the House session because he is a party-list MP whose status may have ended when PPP was disbanded.