Court may not be able end Thailand crisis

But the court ruling they seek may be cause only or more turmoil.

The Constitutional Court is expected to rule as early as Tuesday whether three parties in Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's coalition, including his own People Power Party, should be dissolved for alleged electoral fraud.

A ruling against the government and its allies, which would be welcomed by demonstrators who have seized two major airports to press for Somchai's ouster, is likely to provoke counter-protests from his supporters.

Pro-government leaders, who call their movement the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship, suggested at a rally Sunday that the court was conspiring with the opposition by moving up the date for a ruling. They have threatened to drive the opposition from the airports if police fail to do so.

Many Thais, who don't fall into either the yellow-shirted opposition alliance or the red-shirted camp backing Somchai's government, suffer through their country's continued political instability.

For months now, each apparent solution has ushered in a new crisis, and more bloodshed. Grenade attacks on anti-government demonstrators are almost a daily event, and tensions are growing as rival camps threaten to assault each other and rumors of an impending coup spread.

The demonstrators regard Somchai as a puppet of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, his brother-in-law. Thaksin was overthrown in a coup in 2006, fled overseas and was sentence in absentia to two years in jail on corruption charges. The opposition says the National Assembly put Somchai in office in September at Thaksin's bidding.

Somchai is trying to govern from the northern city of Chiang Mai, about 400 miles from Bangkok, the capital, and his spokesman suggested early in the crisis that he was staying there because he fears for his safety.

The army's commander said last week that he would not lead a coup to oust Somchai because it was unlikely to solve the political stalemate, which has dragged on for months. But as the economic damage mounts -- the airport standoffs are costing the country $57 million to $85 million a day, according to the Federation of Thai Industries -- so does pressure from some quarters on the military to intervene.