By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, May 3 2006 (IPS)

Had these been normal times, Thailand’s newly- elected parliament would have commenced work this week. But that is far from being the case and no one is prepared to hazard a guess on when the uncertainty will end.

Coming in the way of the 500-member lower house’s new term is a battery of court cases filed by enraged citizens seeking to nullify the controversial Apr. 2 general elections.

Thailand has never seen such legal challenges before. At the last count, the three judicial bodies – the supreme court, the administrative court and the constitutional court – were trying to resolve some 500 cases.

In the dock is the country’s election commission, an independent body empowered to conduct the polls. It is being accused of favouring the incumbent Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai – TRT) party.

”It is not only the number of cases but the very the role the judiciary has been pushed into that is new,” David Streckfuss, a United States academic specialising in Thai political culture, said in an interview. ”Historically, the courts have played a conservative role and at times appeared not to exist. But now they have to play a political role as part of the checks-and-balances mechanism.”

What is more, there are no precedents, since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, for the courts to draw upon. ”They will be making the law by their decisions. It will have the force that no other court decision has had in Thai history,” Streckfuss said.

And if the controversy-tainted poll is nullified, a fresh poll may only be held in August, report the local media. Yet, getting to that point may not be easy as sections of the TRT, which currently runs the country through a caretaker government, are threatening to legally challenge any court decision that may invalidate the April poll.

Thailand reached this quagmire after weeks of street demonstrations in the capital questioning the legitimacy of caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s government. The mass protests, which began in February and swelled to 100,000 people at times, focused on allegations of corruption, nepotism and abuse of power.

Thaksin’s attempts to confront his detractors by calling for a snap parliamentary poll, three years ahead of schedule, failed to end the crisis. For one, the opposition parties led by the Democrat Party announced a boycott. That placed the TRT in a bind on two counts -many of its candidates running uncontested had to secure a minimum of 20 percent of the registered votes in each constituency to be elected. The other: the new parliament could not begin work unless all seats in the legislature were filled.

Currently, the TRT has secured all but 10 of the 485 seats where results are known, but stands accused of trying to create a one-party state. It comes on top of the TRT having secured impressive majorities in the previous two parliamentary polls, winning 372 seats in February 2005 while a TRT-led coalition commanded 342 seats in the January 2001 poll.

The last elections were inconclusive since a parliament with 15 seats short cannot begin work according to the country’s constitution. One possible way out, conducting by-elections, has been blocked by the administrative court which ruled, last Friday, against a new round of polls while the results of the last one were under review.

Thaksin did his bit towards adding to the confusion by announcing two days after his party’s victory that he would not accept the mantle of prime minister in the new parliament. Yet, his subsequent actions, including a foreign trip to meet the heads of government, raises doubts about his sincerity.

It was in such a climate that the country’s revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, stepped out from the seclusion of his palace to issue a homily about democracy. ”You have the right to say what’s appropriate or not,” the king said in his speech, last Tuesday, to judges of the administrative court and supreme court. ”(I) did not say the government is not good. But as far as I am concerned, a one-party election is not normal. The one-candidate (situation) is undemocratic.”

But the king also dismissed appeals for intervention by sections of the anti-Thaksin group, including the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which led the protests. The PAD had wanted the king to use a provision in the constitution that enables the monarch to appoint a premier to resolve a political deadlock.

Intriguingly, Thaksin will assume the role of full-fledged prime minister at a ceremony to mark Coronation Day on May 5, marking the 60th anniversary of the king ascending the throne. Early April, he had handed over authority to deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya.

”We have never had so many precedents as we have had since February, but that has created a situation where, for now, there is no clear way out,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, told IPS. ”The judicial branch can help to point the way forward.”

Yet, he cautioned against expecting a quick and early resolution to this country’s political conundrum. ”We are getting ready for a long period of frustration.”

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