Thailand Politics

Popular Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra narrowly held on to his post Friday as Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled 8 to 7 that he was not guilty of deliberately hiding millions of dollars in assets. In the biggest test of Thailand's strict anti-corruption law, four of the judges accepted the billionaire prime minister's defense that he made an "honest mistake" and did not purposely conceal some of his wealth.

When Thailand's government fell in November and haggling politicians could not decide on a new prime minister, the palace's royal doctor prescribed some medicine that jarred Thais even worse than the country's collapsing economy had. King Bhumibol Adulyadej was in the hospital, worried sick by the bickering in a moment of national crisis, the doctor said. The canard worked. Within hours, the politicians had closed in on a deal, and the king had miraculously recovered.

Seated on a sidewalk next to an electric fan, Chalad Vorachat seems an unlikely choice for the martyr of Thai politics. A 49-year-old proprietor of provincial cable television networks, Chalad has been on a hunger strike since Suchinda Kraprayoon was appointed prime minister last month. Chalad vividly recalls his last meal, at 2 a.m. on April 8. "Fighting for democracy is more important than a life," he says matter-of-factly.

In a move apparently aimed at averting further bloodshed in Thailand, a respected businessman was named caretaker prime minister Wednesday instead of the candidate who had the tacit backing of the military. State television's announcement that King Bhumibol Adulyadej had appointed as prime minister Anand Panyarachun, who served in the job after a military coup last year, was a political surprise.

In a major political shift for Thailand, the main opposition party, which was accused of widespread vote fraud in national elections, on Sunday defeated Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai's efforts to win a second term and announced the formation of a coalition government.

Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa dissolved parliament and called fresh elections for Nov. 17, a move that surprised many members of the public and angered some key coalition partners. Banharn had been widely expected to quit today, as he promised last weekend, after picking someone to replace him.

In a weekly ritual near the site of the demonstrations in May that left at least 50 people dead here, mourners wearing black garments gather to crush chili peppers with salt. The occult ceremony is designed to put a curse upon the country's military leaders, whom the mourners blame for Thailand's worst civil unrest in 20 years.

Democrat Party leader Chuan Leekpai, pledging to end the military's domination of Thailand's politics, was named prime minister Wednesday. Chuan takes over from an interim government that replaced Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, who resigned as prime minister in disgrace last May after his troops opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok, killing scores and wounding hundreds. Chuan's coalition can muster 207 votes in the 360-seat House of Representatives after elections Sept.

Marijuana measure Re "Bid to legalize pot use nears ballot," March 24 Legalize pot? Why not? Present policies don't solve problems -- and crooks, small and large, pick up the profits. But placing restrictions on sales would mean less control and sales tax for the state, with the profits going elsewhere. And where would that be? Some equivalent of liquor stores, liquor distributors, liquor manufacturers? Instead, let's be pragmatic and set up state stores on the order of "package stores."

Ye Myint still isn't sure how he survived. In 1988, he and other students were demonstrating peacefully in Rangoon, the capital city of Burma, when troops appeared suddenly and gunned down many of the marchers. "I was so lucky, because so many people were hit and killed right away," says Myint, who has been in the United States since 1991 and who now works as a journalist in Anaheim. "I still don't know how I was so lucky."