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Published on December 24, 2007

As of press time, unofficial results put the People Power Party (PPP) well ahead of all other parties, winning over 220 seats in the House of Representatives, alhough just short of a majority in the 480-member legislature. PPP leader Samak Sundaravej declared victory for his party, which is a successor to the now-defunct Thai Rak Thai of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Yesterday's election was generally accepted as free and fair by the Election Commission and the interim Surayud government in the sense that no major incident of wholesale cheating or unfair practices was reported by election monitors and law-enforcement officials.

Samak should be given the first opportunity to form a coalition government with some of the smaller parties, as the first runner-up, the Democrat Party - which was projected to win about 160 House seats - ruled out any possibility of a political alliance with the PPP.

Acknowledging the PPP's lead, Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said his party would only attempt to form an alternative coalition government with three to four minor parties, which won fewer than 100 House seats among them, if Samak failed to come up with a coalition government.

That's the way it should be.

Thailand has seen democracy suspended for the past 15 months but most people want this ballot to produce a democratically elected civilian government to take over power from the military and to rebuild our parliamentary system under the constitutional monarchy.

Now that the people have made their decision and evidently given the PPP a clear mandate to rule, all Thai citizens, regardless of their political affiliations or ideologies, must accept the election outcome and allow due political process to take its course. After all, the first step toward restoring a full democracy in this country is for all citizens to submit to the supremacy of the rule of law.

All political forces, within and without the party system, must put the animosity that arose from the confrontation between the urban middle class and rural masses instigated by Thaksin and his opponents behind them. They must give the new government that will emerge in the coming days or weeks a chance to serve.

The first priority for the new government is to heal a highly polarised nation and to restore Thailand's credibility, both at home, and among the international community. The new administration must strive to become a government for all Thais, that will serve all people and do its utmost to solve the plethora of economic and social problems that have accumulated or been left to fester under a climate of political uncertainty over the past few years.

Even though the PPP won a greater number of constituency-based House seats, it is interesting to note that both the PPP and the Democrat Party have managed to garner almost the same number of party-list candidates - a system that is based on proportional representation. From this perspective, both parties enjoy about the same public mandate to lead the country.

Regardless of whether the PPP or the Democrat Party gets to the chance to lead the new coalition government, the ruling party must demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt its ability to rise above unhealthy, cynical and divisive politics that are destructive. The new government must show magnanimity in victory and embrace reconciliatory gestures to enable the badly injured nation to heal itself.

The new government must refrain from interfering with legal proceedings which are underway against former prime minister Thaksin, his family members and some of his associates, who are face trial for a host of corruption scandals. The country's criminal justice system is not to be tampered with.

It would be a bad idea and a potentially fatal mistake for the new government not to allow our newly restored justice system and the various independent bodies that serve as checks and balances against the administrative branch of government to do their jobs the way they should - free from interference. It must be remembered that Thaksin's arrogance use of power, his manipulation of democracy, disregard for the rule of law and undermining of many democratic institutions brought about his downfall and plunged the country into its worst political crisis in decades, which it is now trying to overcome.