Thaksin had made it abundantly clear that the election result would settle once and for all the hotly contested question of his legitimacy as a democratic leader and renew his public mandate to stage a triumphant comeback as a third-time prime minister. Never mind the fact that the real reason behind Thaksin's decision to dissolve the House of Representatives and call a snap election in the first place was to avoid a parliamentary debate on his government's numerous corruption scandals and blatant conflicts of interest involving him and his family.

The caretaker prime minister and his Thai Rak Thai Party also wanted the Thai public to disregard the boycott of this election by main opposition parties, which made yesterday's election look like the sham democratic process that it actually was. Without the participation of key opposition parties, the Thai Rak Thai Party is expected to gain complete control of the House of Representatives and theoretically to tighten its grip on political power without any real parliamentary opposition.

But to most people, it was a foregone conclusion that Thaksin and the Thai Rak Thai would be returned to power in an even more impressive landslide than its previous ones in 2001 and 2005.

There may be technical hurdles that the Thai Rak Thai will have to overcome, such as the need for its candidates to garner the votes of at least 20 per cent of the total number of eligible voters in constituencies where they fielded the sole candidate. But it is not in doubt that most of them will eventually clear such obstacles by hook or by crook.

After all, the Thai Rak Thai Party has never been known for reticence when it comes to using populist policies and its unparalleled electoral war chest to induce votes of support and enduring loyalty, particularly among the gullible rural masses and urban poor.

The prime minister has insisted that the supremacy of the ballot box offers the best solution possible to the current political mess. But the politically powerful middle class and a wide cross-section of civil society, who have staged mass protests in Bangkok to seek Thaksin's ouster, beg to differ.

Thaksin's invocation of ballot-box democracy, as he chooses to interpret it, does not hold water. It fails to take into consideration a major fallacy of the concept, particularly in a less-developed democracy like ours, in which the impoverished, poorly informed masses are easily manipulated by people of his ilk.

Once Thaksin gained power as prime minister, he allegedly proceeded to subvert the Constitution by undermining the independent watchdog agencies whose job it is to check on the executive branch of government, including the Constitution Court, the National Counter Corruption Commission and the Election Commission.

The Election Commission, charged with organising yesterday's election, has been widely criticised for its unusually servile attitude toward Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai Party - if not also for its alleged collusion to rig election results. The commission's initial insistence that voters use only the rubber stamps it provided - and not pens - to mark their ballots attracted widespread suspicion because it seemed to make the poll more vulnerable to fraud.

The problem is, the election outcome won't change a thing as far as Thaksin's political legitimacy is concerned.

In a way, the unprecedentedly high number of "no vote" ballots cast is a resounding rejection of Thaksin's latest ballot-box democracy trick, his desperate struggle to cling to power by inviting opposition parties and some of his most vocal critics to form a "national unity" government to implement a comprehensive constitutional reform.

Thaksin has made his choice and he now stays to face the potentially explosive consequences.