The military top brass in the Council for National Security (CNS) has been jumpy over the overrated potential of these organisers, who are hardly known among public campaigners for their deeds in upholding democracy and national interests.

The top generals seemingly overreacted to the whispers about a large rally, claimed to be around 30,000 people, simply because they are not used to dealing with protesters.

What they saw during the tenacious campaign by the pro-democracy alliance against the Thaksin regime for several months, leading to a coup on September 19, must have warned them that they should take no chances.

A peaceful rally could be instigated or incited to become unruly and combative, resulting in violence, accidental or intended. That would lead to the weakening of the CNS and the Surayud government in their joint bid to lay a new platform for political reform and electoral democracy.

The CNS and the armed forces took the trouble of assigning military personnel to enter various communities in Bangkok and suburban areas to detect movements and the hiring of low-income people to turn out at Sanam Luang.

Members of the Thai Rak Thai Party known for their influence over grass-roots mobs have been summoned to meetings with joint teams of military, police and administrative officials, with suggestions that they should desist from instigating anti-government campaigns.

The CNS was able to hit pay dirt when a provincial mob organiser sang about how he had been taking money to organise grass-roots rallies in support of Thaksin's regime. As a result, other small-time and also-ran crowd pushers also told their part of dirty stories behind the protest movement.

These few small-time rally organisers have been embroiled in each other's revelations of taking money from politicians to carry out their mission, which is primarily to bash the CNS and the government for the coup and their slowness in restoring democracy.

These organisers have engaged in mud-slinging, trading charges over accepting payments to organise mobs on the orders of politicians who are in the inner circle of Thaksin's cronies assigned to do hatchet jobs on the new rulers.

Who will turn out today? There will be genuine campaigners for democracy mixing with charlatan fighters for public interests. Villagers from the Northeast are reported to have travelled to Bangkok on a daily stipend from organisers.

Government authorities have been trying to prevent their travelling to the capital. At least one overrated self-styled campaigner, Chanapat na Nakhon, has opted out, claiming that he had been persuaded by a revered figure to call off his planned rally.

Insiders suspect, however, that the man was unable to raise enough people to his rally after being tainted by accusations of being on the take from politicians. From now on, he will have to devote quite some time to a legal battle over libel charges filed by a politician.

There could be a twist today if the number of security personnel, in uniform and plainclothes, far outnumber those joining the rally. It would not be a surprise if there is only a small turnout, because it is too soon for any serious campaign group to come up with full-scale anti-government protests.

The CNS and the government should spare no effort in their task of nation rebuilding and restoring democracy after setting new ground rules realistic for our political situation.

Yet, they must also carry out the mission of dealing with crooked politicians and their networks, comprising civil servants and cronies in the business world who were the chief components of the massive corruption during the Thaksin years, as investigators try to recover the plundered national assets.

Failure in this task will give rise to anti-government rallies that will not be led by small-time crowd pushers, but that could include faces Thaksin finds not to his liking.

 Sopon Onkgara