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How come the opposition party didn't (or couldn't) nominate someone from their own ranks to take over the government from Abhisit?

Why is it that after six months, the Pheu Thai Party has yet to name a real party leader to assume the constitutionally required post of the official "opposition leader?"

What surprised me more, in fact, was when Chalerm Yoobamrung - arguably the party's most vocal, if not the most influential, MP - suggested on Monday that the next general election may be held by April, next year.

To hear Pheu Thai Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit's earlier, much tougher, statement, one would have thought that the opposition party was demanding an immediate dissolution of the House so that they could ride their claimed rising popularity to kick out the Democrats in any popular poll.

Chalerm's six-month timeline for the next election doesn't sound like an utterance from a very confident and ready-to-go opposition leader.

What, then, is the real "grand strategy" being plotted from Dubai by Thaksin Shinawatra?

Is there a split among the apparatchiks within the Pheu Thai Party as to how to handle the Abhisit government? Or is it because the party and the red-shirt movement have yet to synchronise their strategies?

Note that Thaksin, during his "lunchtime noodle video link" on Monday, made no mention of the supposedly new major red-shirt rally slated for August 30. Conspicuously absent was his usual rallying cry for the red shirts to "show our force." Instead he resorted to trivial gossip like "the PM looks less handsome these days".

Pheu Thai's main weakness is its lack of a real political platform. It exists only for one purpose: To absolve Thaksin of all guilt and pave the way for his return to power, no matter what.

It's the "no matter what" trap that ensnares the whole landscape of the opposition's politics. Chalerm admitted that without Thaksin at the top, Pheu Thai would become rudderless. Its future relies solely on the hope, no matter how nebulous, that somehow Thaksin will make it back here as a hero.

Even for Thaksin, that's a high-stakes game. Short of a miraculous convergence of several highly unlikely events, the ex-premier's wait to come home will be long and arduous. The legal grounds are flawed. The political obstacles are too formidable and the social cost is simply too high.

There is no guarantee that a convincing victory in the next election for Pheu Thai could effect sufficient legal and political changes to enable Thaksin to come home as a free man.

Thaksin's recent repeated "I-shall-return" statements are nothing more than a morale-boosting gimmick to keep the red-shirt rallies alive. It's all about his political marketing gimmick: So far, and yet so near.

The most dreaded questions for him, of course, include: "What if I don't make it back at all? What if even the biggest "even" - the petition rally - finally fizzles out?"

Strange but true, the most interesting and perhaps realistic evaluation of the situation may have emerged from Jakrapob Penkair, writing from exile in the latest issue of The Red Front. He wrote: "It's good and well to boost one another's morale. But I can't help but raise doubts about those who have been telling the red shirts that Thaksin will come back soon to become prime minister again. They want to make it sound like that victory in our fight against those who have robbed us of democracy will be easy, brief and nice…."

He then declared: "Don't get so carried away that dreams come before hope."

Jakrapob was of course addressing the Bangkok-based core leaders of the red shirts, with whom he seems to have been at odds at least over strategic analysis and the future direction of the pro-Thaksin movement.

But, who knows, he might in fact have meant the message for Thaksin.