THAI COUP HIGHLIGHTS STRUGGLES OVER DEMOCRACY

BANGKOK -- Inside the teeming Khlong Toei slum in the shadow of this
city's modern skyscrapers, 60-year-old street vendor Chalaem Tiensiri
is still proudly displaying campaign stickers from deposed prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra's party on the walls of her shack. Asked
about the bloodless military coup last week that abruptly ousted
Thaksin from power, she looked down at her empty hands and quietly
cried.

Echoing the feelings of many on the warren-like streets of Khlong
Toei, Chalaem said the poor in Thailand were largely ignored before
Thaksin was elected in a landslide in 2001. A billionaire tycoon who
became the hero of the underclass, Thaksin ushered in universal health
care that allowed Chalaem's cancer-stricken daughter to receive
chemotherapy for less than $1 per treatment. His war on drugs, she
said, drove the methamphetamine dealers from the neighborhood's tough
streets. Local leaders from Thaksin's party provided free milk for her
young grandson and brought the struggling widow gifts of rice several
times a year.

"I don't care what they say about Thaksin, he was the first one who
ever cared about us," she said, kneeling next to her ill daughter who
rested languidly on a cot. "He gave me a chance to keep my daughter
alive. He gave us food when we were in need. Now that he's been chased
out, the poor have lost their closest friend."

Chalaem's lingering respect for Thaksin -- still widely shared among
the urban poor and rural farmers across the country's north and
northeast -- underscores the core problems confronting Thailand and a
host of other emerging nations as they try, and sometimes fail, to
cultivate healthy democracies.

Thaksin followed the path of other democratically elected leaders,
like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who are accused of using their posts to
enhance their power at the expense of democratic institutions.
Thaksin, following that pattern, gained popular support by pushing
through policies aimed at easing the plight of the poor while using
handouts of food and even cash to ensure votes at election time.

Experts say such populist-driven politics has exacerbated class
divisions and created a significant hurdle to maintaining the rule of
law for some developing countries. Well-educated middle-or
upper-class Thais have generally embraced the coup as a regrettable
but necessary step toward ending Thaksin's grip on power and ushering
in a new constitution. The provisional military government, headed by
the soft-spoken Royal Thai Army chief, Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, has
promised to name a civilian as caretaker prime minister in the coming
days and hold elections within one year.

Foreign advocates for democracy and some domestic observers in
Thailand have seen a clear conflict in such support for the coup.
While the ousted prime minister infuriated his opponents by clinging
to power, he simultaneously enjoyed unparalleled popularity among the
nation's largest block of voters -- the poor. Some anti-Thaksin forces
have even indirectly blamed the unquestioning support by poor Thais of
the ousted prime minister for Thailand's current crisis.

"We understand that to some extent we have failed to address the
problems of the poor, and we need to do a better job," said Surin
Pitsuwan, a former foreign minister and leading member of the
opposition Democrat Party. "The problem is that in Thailand, Thaksin
created a class of people dependent on state handouts. We need to
teach these people that there are no such things as free gifts in a
real democracy and that it does them more harm than good to live off
the largess of corrupt leaders."

Democracy advocates abroad, meanwhile, are viewing the case of
Thailand -- an important regional ally of the United States and one of
Southeast Asia's largest economies -- as particularly
demoralizing.

In the 15 years since the last military takeover here, Thailand had
emerged as the region's model for democratic reform. Already, the
jailed leaders of a February coup attempt against Philippine President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo have made comments to the foreign press
hailing the successful military men of Bangkok as exemplary patriots.

Analysts fear the Thai coup will also embolden existing military
juntas, such as the one in neighboring Burma, to resist mounting
international pressure to enact democratic reforms.

"The comeback from other nations in the region when they are told to
make democratic reforms will be, 'Hey, look at Thailand. They couldn't
make it work and the military had to take charge again,' " said
Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political analyst at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn
University. "Their argument will be that the people are just not eager
for democracy and that the military men still know best."

The coup has brought swift international condemnation. The Bush
administration is now in the process of reviewing military and other
aid to Thailand and has said a pending free trade agreement with
Bangkok cannot go forward without a restoration of democracy.

Thaksin, who was in New York preparing to address the United Nations
at the time of the coup, is now in London, where he told reporters he
was taking a "holiday" for the time being. In a statement, Thaksin
appeared resigned to his ouster, saying he would remain in Europe for
the time being to promote Thai unity.

But foreign investors remained jittery, with the Thai currency, the
baht, and the stock market going on wild rides as rumors of a
counter-move by officers still loyal to Thaksin have raged through
Bangkok. So far, there have been no serious indications of violent
resistance to the provisional military authority.

Anti-Thaksin forces here insist the coup is being misrepresented
outside Thailand. They describe it as the result of Thaksin's attempt
to usurp the constitution and set himself up as a "democratic
dictator" in a nation where King Bhumibol Adulyadej remains the
beloved head of state. Public protests against Thaksin, they said, had
grown in the aftermath of a corruption scandal in which his family
sold its controlling stake in a major telecommunications company to a
Singapore state investment firm for $1.9 billion without paying a cent
of taxes. But those protest rallies were confined to Bangkok.

Still, the spark that finally ignited the coup appeared to be
Thaksin's recent interference in the military promotion system to
elevate his allies to top positions.

In a signal that the royal household had effectively endorsed the
coup, the king officially named Sonthi the head of an interim council.

On Friday, Sonthi again promised to swiftly name a civilian caretaker,
with foreign observers calling for the appointment of a well-known and
respected figure to prevent the impression of a puppet government.
Attention has focused on former World Trade Organization chief
Supachai Panitchpakdi and Thailand's central bank head, Pridiyathorn
Devakula. But on Friday, speculation also turned to a less renowned
figure, Ackaratorn Chularat, president of Thailand's Supreme
Administrative Court.

Analysts note that Thaksin's adversaries had yet to exhaust all legal
means of opposing him, and they said the checks and balances of
Thailand's constitutional monarchy had recently begun to function.

With a nod from the king, Thaksin loyalists on an election commission
were purged by the still largely independent Supreme Court -- opening
the way for a more level playing field in elections that were set to
be held in the coming months. Thaksin's critics say his party was
already gearing up for a cash-for-votes campaign that would have kept
him in power.

Instead, with the military now in charge, Thailand has reverted to
martial law. At least four of Thaksin's top aides have been detained
by military authorities, who have also outlawed political meetings of
five or more people. TV and radio stations have been warned to prevent
criticism of the new military government, with armed soldiers
stationed inside or near major domestic networks as a reminder. The
military authority on Friday also named an official body to probe
allegations of corruption under Thaksin.

Resistance to military control has already begun to fester. A group of
about 100 university students staged an ingenious protest on Friday
near an upscale shopping mall. To avoid violating the new military
rules against political gatherings, they clustered themselves in
groups of twos or threes across a broad public area.

"This coup is not what we wanted," said a 19-year-old university
protester who declined to give his name, but held a sign saying: "No
to Thaksin, No to the Coup."

"Thailand needs real democracy," he said, "and we don't feel this was
the right way to achieve it."