Will Thailand’s caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra see his long run of luck continue? That question looms large after a ruling last week by the Election Commission against Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai — TRT) party.

Thaksin’s capacity to survive crises that threatened to destroy his political career during the over five-year period he has been in office since January 2001 has been one among many remarkable features of his rule. But the flurry of legal cases the TRT are up against around the disputed April 2 parliamentary poll suggest that such a run of good fortune may be drying out.

The Election Commission’s ruling that the TRT had violated two of the country’s electoral laws, including alleged bribery, during the campaign leading up to the April poll is the latest threat to Thaksin. If found guilty, the TRT will have to be disbanded and Thaksin, as the party’s leader, could end up being barred from forming a new party for five years.

This twist in a continuing saga of uncertainties comes after this South-east Asian country paused for nearly two weeks in June to celebrate the 60-year reign of its revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. During that period, Thais in the tens of thousands put differences aside to present a face of unity and sing the praises to a monarch that enjoys near divine status.

But by this week, the newspapers were back with stark reminders that the country is in a political tailspin with no hint of an end in sight. ‘’Under the current 1997 constitution, this is the first time that a major party is being taken to task by the court,’’ Thitinan Pongsudhirak, political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said.

Analysts are in agreement that the pressure faced by the TRT and its leader stem from a level of judicial engagement in the country’s politics that is groundbreaking. ‘’The courts have become very political. They have been charged to find a political solution and they appear determined to do so,’’ says Thitinan.

On May 8, the constitutional court left its mark on the unfolding uncertainties by nullifying the disputed April poll, which the TRT won with a questionable mandate, following the decision by the main opposition parties to boycott the poll and an unprecedented number of protest votes.

This shift in the country’s judiciary — to move away from its reputation of avoiding political disputes to present a new face of seriousness — is attributed to a late April speech made by the king admonishing the courts to do their job to end the ‘’mess’’ the country was in. The political stability the country experienced during that five-year period stands in contrast to the volatile state of affairs that Thais were more accustomed to. Over the past 60 years, the country has been through 17 military coups, 15 constitutions and 21 prime ministers. Thaksin, in fact, was the first premier to complete a full four-year term and then be re-elected in back-to-back polls.

But revelations in the media and at public demonstrations about alleged corruption, nepotism and abuse of power by the government began to chip away at Thaksin’s legitimacy. Bangkok’s middle and upper-middle class voters, who took to the streets in their thousands in anti-Thaksin protests from February to April this year, served notice to the premier that he should go. — IPS