That's it, I quit

Suwit has never been widely known to have a strong political view on the coalition government. He has seemed to prefer to go with the flow. So, political pundits were surprised when he called a press conference to announce his resignation.

Suwit claimed, albeit unconvincingly, that the party no longer wished to stay with the coalition because it was not happy with the government's priority of constitutional amendment. Instead it should be tackling the economic problems. Besides, Suwit said he was not satisfied with the handling of the Preah Vihear case.

Barely a couple of hours later, other members of the Puea Pandin Party called another press conference to respond to Suwit's announcement. Pan Puengsujarit, deputy leader of the party, said that Puea Pandin had no intention of withdrawing from the government and the decision to quit was made by Suwit alone.

However, Suwit still has some friends. Yesterday, Ranongrak Suwanchawee, also a Puea Pandin member, quit as deputy finance minister.

The motive for Suwit's resignation became the subject of a popular quiz in several polls today. A poll question asked: "do you think that Suwit quit because he disagrees with the government's policies or because of his personal conflict with the government."

However, we didn't check the results to see what the majority of the respondents believed.

Veera Musikapong said during "Today's Truth", the government's TV propaganda programme, that Suwit made a pre-emptive strike by quitting before Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej sacked him from his Cabinet post. After all, it was earlier reported that Suwit's future in Samak's Cabinet was in doubt anyway.

Although Suwit was the leader of the Puea Pandin Party, he didn't hold much power over the party's members. Suwit lost clout among the rank and file because he failed to be elected during the general election in his hometown constituency.

Suwit reportedly met Samak shortly before he announced his resignation on Tuesday to discuss his future with the Cabinet. Sources said that Samak didn't seem to be worried about the possibility of Suwit's departure.

After Suwit's resignation, Samak told the press that his departure would not affect the list of the new Cabinet members in any way.

Can this be construed as meaning that Suwit would have been pushed before he quit anyway?