Thai PM Eases Pressure With Election Date

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont appears to have eased the pressure on his increasingly unpopular interim government.

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont appears to have eased the pressure on his increasingly unpopular interim government by setting an election date and refusing military pleas to use emergency powers in Bangkok.

He may also have undermined the so far peaceful and small demonstrations advocating various issues centred around demands for an immediate return to electoral politics which the military had wanted to crack down on, analysts said on Friday.

"The clear election date helps open the valve that has kept up the pressure of political and economic uncertainty," Somphob Manarangsan, an economics professor at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said.

"It's a wise offensive move by Surayud to clear public doubts about whether there would be an election later this year," he said a day after Surayud promised a general election on Dec. 16 or 22.

Officials said the second probable date was Dec. 23 and Surayud had misspoken.

"It is a right decision not to resort to using emergency powers as that would be hard to justify in the eyes of the business and international communities" already upset by a series of economic missteps by Surayud's government, Somphob said.

"An announcement of an emergency decree would seriously undermine Thailand's image, hurt its tourism and investment."

The demonstrations against the government installed after the military ousted elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September had been growing.

About 3,000 people turned up for one last weekend, worrying coup leaders that things could get out of hand, as they have in the past under military governments in coup-prone Thailand.

FOREIGNERS UNIMPRESSED

But police said one planned for later on Friday would probably be a damp squib following Surayud's election announcement.

"We've prepared fewer police personnel," a police spokesman said. "Only about 500 protesters are expected to show up. There should be no violence."

That might have been different had Surayud bowed to the military wishes and invoked tough emergency powers under a decree Thaksin issued three years ago to use against a bloody insurgency in the Muslim-majority far south, analysts said.

"Announcing a state of emergency could have drawn many normal but curious people out to see what sort of rallies they actually are," saidSukhum Nualsakun, a political science professor at Ramkamhaeng University in Bangkok.

"Announcing the election date makes people see the light of a solution for the current political uncertainty."

But Surayud and the coup leaders are not clear of trouble just yet, Nation columnist Thanong Khanthong said.

"The stage is set for another round of power plays -- a situation that is reminiscent of the political crisis that Thailand went through painfully last year," he wrote.

Activists remain suspicious of a military-appointed committee due to release a draft constitution next month that they fear will severely weaken political parties and include a political role for the military.

Foreign investors, an important factor in Thailand's export-driven economy, were also unlikely to be inspired by Surayud's move, said Anubhon Sriaj, head of research at BFIT Securities.

Since Surayud took office after the coup, they have watched his government impose currency controls, then ease them, propose stiff reforms to foreign ownership laws which would undermine their control, then roll them back.

"There doesn't appear to be a coherent policy being articulated," Anthony Muh, executive director at AT Asset Management, said shortly before Surayud's announcement.

"It's a state of confusion and it's eroding confidence," he said.

Nothing much had changed overnight, Anubhon said.

"Foreign investors? I don't think they will come back until we get a new government," he said.