The big surprise is there is no real surprise

The best and the brightest will remain on the sidelines. The main players are back. And they include the "professional" politicians and "politically ambitious" academics and all those somewhere in between.

After five years of tumultuous "Thaksinomics", which was dramatically cut short by the September 19 coup, the return to some semblance of electoral politics may even be welcomed as a relief of sorts in certain circles. But if you are serious about political reform, be warned: you must brace yourselves for some real disappointment.

Political pundits are already talking about a post-election coalition government with no single political party holding the kind of "suffocating majority" that Thai Rak Thai once had. Thai politics has turned full circle.

Not too long ago, we thought checks and balances could be achieved by the presence of several parties sharing power. But then, we found that a coalition government was synonymous with a weak executive branch that was wrecked by endless bickering. So, when the Thaksin-led Thai Rak Thai won an overwhelming majority in the election, it promised a "strong prime minister running a strong government".

But soon, it became clear that even a democratically elected leader could become an authoritarian chief executive and - even when corruption scandals became the order of the day - there was no real effective means to replace him. Now, we are back to "checks-and-balances" mode once again and, following the September 19 "benevolent coup", scholars are reviving that familiar debate on how to keep the military out of politics yet again. Admittedly, under such circumstances, we can't raise our hopes too high. But even in that subdued mood, it's with a terrible sense of alarm that we witness the emergence of two political groups, comprised mostly of "old faces" in the political field and "familiar academics", presenting themselves as the only "bright spots" on the darkened scene.

The "Matchima" (Middle Path) grouping is led by "professional politician" Somsak Thepsuthin, formerly a cabinet member under Thaksin. The other group, calling themselves "Ruam Jai Thai", (Thai Unity) is made up of a mixture of ex-politicians, scholars with ambiguous political affiliations and businessmen passing themselves off as concerned citizens ready to sacrifice their vested interests by taking up direct political roles.

It's not clear what political ideologies, if any, they represent. Apart from trying to deflect speculation that they are in one way or another acting as the "proxies" of the coup-leaders for the next election, the two groups don't seem to have any strong political convictions. Of course, despite their past affiliation with Thaksin when he was in power, quite a few of them tried desperately to discourage any suggestion that they were still keeping in touch with the ex-premier.

Both, however, seemed to share a common predicament: they can't tell you who the party leader is. What's worse, both claimed that Somkid Jatusripitak, the famous ex-heir of Thaksin, was likely to head their respective parties. And when Somkid made himself conspicuous by his inexplicable absence, it was clear that both camps suffer from a "(figurehead) leadership crisis" from the very outset.

The irony was there for all to see. Originally there was to be only one new grouping. The "professional politicians" courted the "academics" because both sides recognised the unhappy fact that they had what the others didn't and vice versa. But somewhere along the way to making things public, the two sides couldn't agree on who was to be reporting to whom - and both were counting on Somkid to provide the facade of public acceptability without realising how faint-hearted their man was.

Instead of posing searching questions about the two groups' plans and platforms to win the next election, reporters instead went along with this "dumbing-down" exercise. The main question during the two press conferences was: "Why isn't Somkid here? Has there been a falling out?" And the key characters' answers consisted of unconvincing statements trying to fend off speculation of the parties having broken up before even launching.

What does this episode tell us? Clearly, it simply confirms that:

1) We are truly back to politics as usual, which means: get those votes by hook or by crook.

2) There is no such thing as a permanent friend or foe in politics.

3) To paraphrase Plato, those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. Therefore, those who think they are really smart have to play dumb.

If you really want to know how desperate the old pros are to regain political power to rule those who are smarter, analyse this statement from former Thai Rak Thai senior party executive Somsak Thepsuthin, who spearheaded the founding of the Matchima group: "We are ready to play games, even if the field isn't level …"

Suthichai Yoon