Thai Opposition Says Wins Over Some Ruling Parties

Parliament must elect a a new prime minister to succeed Somchai Wongsawat, and the parties are jostling for influence.

Thailand's opposition Democrat Party said on Saturday several parties in the ruling coalition were willing to switch sides and form a government with it.

Parliament must elect a prime minister to succeed Somchai Wongsawat after his People Power Party (PPP), the biggest in the coalition, was disbanded on Tuesday by the courts for electoral fraud, the latest twist in a three-year political crisis.

At a news conference that was delayed for two hours, the Democrat Party presented senior officials from four parties it said were now on its side, plus some defectors from the PPP.

"We understand the country's economic problems and the feelings of the Thai people. We have decided to get together to help solve the country's crisis," Suthep Thaugsuban, the Democrat Party's secretary-general, told the news conference.

The Tuesday court verdict came as the extra-parliamentary People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) blockaded Bangkok's main airports, stranding hundreds of thousands of tourists and disrupting cargo as part of its campaign to oust the government.

The PAD ended the blockade after the ruling but has made clear it will resume its street campaign if it does not like the new government. It accused the PPP of being a front for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a coup in 2006.

Many Thais had been looking to the king to calm the situation in an annual address to the nation on Thursday, the eve of his 81st birthday, but he was too ill to attend the ceremony. The palace said on Saturday his condition had improved.

JUMPING SHIP

Leaders of the PPP and two other disbanded parties have been barred from politics, but ordinary lawmakers have simply transferred to "shell" parties and it had seemed likely that the coalition would continue in a different guise.

Now, however, according to figures from parliamentary officials, the Democrats plus the four coalition parties it claims to have wooed would command 224 votes in parliament.

The PPP, now rebranded as Puea Thai, has 219 but that could go down if some of its members have jumped ship.

Puea Thai lawmaker Boonjong Wongtrairat told the news conference that 37 lawmakers from one faction in the old PPP called Friends of Newin would now be voting with the Democrats.

Faction leader Newin Chidchob told the Matichon daily earlier: "Political parties must join hands to break this deadlock to return peace and order to the country."

Adding to the muddle, Thaksin's ex-wife has just returned to Thailand from exile amid speculation in the Thai press she had come back to sort out problems inside Puea Thai.

Despite several arrest warrants against her, police said on Friday they did not detain Potjaman Shinawatra because she was pursuing an appeal against a three-year jail sentence for tax evasion.

A spokesman for Potjaman said she had returned to Thailand to see her sick mother and it had nothing to do with politics.

She was divorced from Thaksin in November after 32 years of marriage. No explanation has been given for the separation.

Thaksin remains in exile and his whereabouts are unknown. The couple lost their London base after Britain revoked their visas.

Thailand has been in crisis for three years, with Bangkok's royal and military elites pitted first against Thaksin and later his allies in the PPP, in government since the start of 2008.