Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's gamble in calling parliamentary elections three years ahead of time appeared to have backfired on him as the results came in yesterday. He claimed to have won 57 per cent of the 16 million votes cast, but had to admit his party's share was down three million on the last election in February 2005.
The three main opposition parties boycotted the vote in protest and dispute his figures. Last night they rejected Mr Thaksin's proposal that a committee of eminent people be set up to recommend a way out of the crisis. There is a sharp polarisation between Bangkok and other cities where the opposition is strongest, and the rural areas of north and northeast Thailand where Mr Thaksin's popularity is undimmed. There is also a division between the north of the country and the south, where a minority secessionist Muslim movement is also active.
Mr Thaksin, a billionaire telecoms tycoon, first came to power in 2001, having founded his populist Thai Rak Thai (Thai love Thai) party on a platform of economic reform and redistribution of resources to rural areas. Since his re-election last year he has been caught up in a series of corruption scandals and restricted political and media freedoms. A protest movement, the People's Alliance for Democracy, has organised street demonstrations against them with the support of most of the country's urban middle class and media. It is widely believed that Mr Thaksin called the election to reassert his power in response, even though it was not constitutionally necessary for another three years. Hence the election boycott and the widespread determination to call his bluff.
Having to admit the loss of three million votes on last year is a significant indication of weakness, as is the dubious constitutionality of the overall result and those in a number of key constituencies arising from the large numbers of abstentions. But Mr Thaksin clearly enjoys the support of millions of poor rural Thais in the northern parts of the country where he comes from. He has delivered on promises to provide them with better healthcare, restructured loans for farmers and villages, as a result of which their standards of living have risen significantly. This makes him more powerful than similar figures in other comparatively young Asian democracies such as the Philippines. There are also traces of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in his populism. But this result has divided Thais more deeply and has not got Mr Thaksin out of the hole he dug for himself. Resolving the situation will be a real test of the country's democratic institutions.