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Published on October 3, 2007

All of a sudden, December 23 - the date set for our symbolic return to democracy - seems like a remote prospect. To most of us, it will be a long, anxious, if not frightful, wait.

The villain is dead. Or is he?

We have arrived at that point in a horror movie where the still body of a repeatedly shot killer leaves us thinking that he will suddenly grab the heroine's ankle - or will the late-arriving hero take her into his arms and then look maliciously into the camera before the credits roll?

General Sonthi Boonyaratglin is that "hero".

Forget Thaksin Shinawatra or Samak Sundaravej. The former is the villain lying in the pool of blood in the kitchen, but all he can do is give the heroine - named "Democracy" in this case - one last little scare. The latter is a bit player at best, the kind of character that starts off as quite important but always leaves us hoping that his brutal death is imminent.

Sonthi is different. Not until the final moments will the heroine really know if he's the one to be trusted, but she is stuck with him anyhow.

He controversially "rescued" her a year ago, and she keeps wondering why, and now even more so. In a King novel, Sonthi could be either "Mr Trust Me Although I Know It's Hard", or "Mr Things Have Changed And Now This Is What I Want".

"Mr Trust Me Although I Know It's Hard" has tried to prove his sincerity by quitting as the head of the Council for National Security (CNS). That doesn't help, because his last act of sacrifice - joining the interim Cabinet as deputy prime minister overseeing security affairs - has raised the heroine's suspicion to near-panic point. He means to help make sure the election plan is on track, but mounting scepticism now stands between heroic success and disastrous failure.

While growing scepticism of Mr Trust Me threatens to jeopardise everything, Mr Things Have Changed is behind everything else.

The campaign against interim Cabinet members who have suddenly been found to have conflicts of interests, the efforts to reopen the old wounds of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, and the neutralisation of hot-headed General Saprang Kalayanamitr are all clever schemes designed to keep Democracy under his wing - at least for a while longer.

Mr Things Have Changed is blinded by misguided patriotism. Initially he wanted to save the heroine - he may still do - but he has been confused by his own agenda, not knowing the difference between "save" and "possess". He doesn't trust anyone to watch over her. He is her one and only saviour, and anyone who thinks otherwise is standing in his way.

Prasong Soonsiri, Sondhi Limthongkul and the National Counter Corruption Commission are either collaborators of Mr Things Have Changed, or weak enemies he either manipulated or outsmarted. Their not-so-secret agenda - to delay the election until it is irreversibly certain that Thaksin cannot come back - suits him well.

No, the post of deputy prime minister is not enough for Sonthi. He's eyeing something bigger.

Mr Trust Me, on the other hand, has alienated the same people, pushing them toward disgruntled and potentially loose cannon Saprang, and risking his own security. Will the heroine believe that he has, in fact, been weakened politically after his resignation from the CNS, and that constitutionally he cannot go further then being a deputy prime minister?

As the newly passed Constitution stipulates that the prime minister must be an MP, there has been a strong argument that if Surayud is forced out of office, only a member of the interim Parliament could succeed him.

With the interim charter now overridden by the new Constitution, the CNS chairman's power to dictate changes at the top of the interim Cabinet has all but gone. Is that good for Thailand under the current circumstances? Sonthi, who has officially retired as Army chief and has resigned as CNS leader, has, on the surface, assumed the role of a hero without a gun. What lies beneath his concerned look as he embraces the still shaken and unsure heroine will shape the course of Thai politics between now and December 23.

Tulsathit  Taptim

The Nation