Thai opposition claims to win over some ruling MPs

Thailand's opposition Democrat Party said yesterday several parties in the ruling coalition were willing to switch sides and form a government with it.

Parliament must elect a prime minister to succeed Somchai Wongsawat after his People Power Party (PPP), the biggest in the coalition, was disbanded last Tuesday by the courts for electoral fraud, the latest twist in a three-year political crisis.

At a news conference that was delayed for two hours, the Democrat Party presented senior officials from four parties it said were now on its side, plus some defectors from the PPP.

"We understand the country's economic problems and the feelings of the Thai people. We have decided to get together to help solve the country's crisis," Suthep Thaugsuban, the Democrat Party's secretary-general, told the news conference.

The Tuesday court verdict came as the extra-parliamentary People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) blockaded Bangkok's main airports, stranding hundreds of thousands of tourists and disrupting cargo as part of its campaign to oust the government.

The PAD ended the blockade after the ruling but has made clear it will resume its street campaign if it does not like the new government. It accused the PPP of being a front for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a coup in 2006.

Many Thais had been looking to the king to calm the situation in an annual address to the nation on Thursday, but he was too ill to attend the ceremony. The palace said yesterday his condition had improved.

Leaders of the PPP and two other disbanded parties have been barred from politics, but ordinary lawmakers have simply transferred to 'shell' parties and it had seemed likely that the coalition would continue in a different guise.