Thailand's parliament votes for a new prime minister on Monday, with the opposition Democrats favourites to emerge at the head of a weak coalition government as the economy flirts with recession. Another small political party pledged on Sunday to back Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has made reviving the export and tourism-dependent economy his top priority, Reuters reported.
Pradit Pataraprasit, secretary general of Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana, told Reuters the party's nine MPs would support Abhisit in the vote scheduled for 9:30 a.m. (0230 GMT).
Parliament is choosing a new prime minister because Somchai Wongsawat, brother-in-law of ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra, was sacked by the courts after his People Power Party (PPP) was found guilty of fraud in the December 2007 election that brought it to power.
A day after the ruling, the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) ended a blockade of Bangkok's main airports that had caused chaos for hundreds of thousands of travellers.
After months of political strife and a global slowdown, the economy was expected to shrink 0.5-1.0 percent in the first quarter of 2009 from a year earlier and post no growth in the second quarter, putting it on the brink of recession, Acting Finance Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech said.
Thousands of pro-Thaksin "red shirts" are expected to gather at parliament on Monday to support their candidate for prime minister, former national police chief Pracha Promnok.
They will be watched by some 800 police guarding the compound where protests by the yellow-shirted PAD triggered street clashes with police in October. Thaksin, who lives in exile after his ouster in a 2006 coup, called for national reconciliation on Saturday and urged the military not to meddle in the parliamentary vote.
"May all sides take one step back and respect the results," Thaksin said in 20-minute recorded address shown on video screens to 40,000 supporters at a Bangkok sports stadium.
"Please don't use any institution to intervene. Just let the country move forward. Don't make people suffer more," he said.
Thaksin supporters have accused the military of launching a "silent coup" by claiming to have royal backing and pushing small parties in the previous government to form a Democrat-led government -- a charge the army has denied.
If Abhisit is elected prime minister, he is likely to command only a slender majority at the helm of a multi-party coalition that includes a group of renegade PPP MPs.
The Democrats claim to have the support of 260 MPs in the 480-seat parliament, whose numbers have been thrown into confusion by the dissolution of the PPP and two other minor parties and the banning of their leaders from politics.
Remnants of the banned PPP, who moved to a new party called Puea Thai, say they still have a shot at forming a coalition.
Both the Democrats and the Thaksin camp have intensified efforts to enlist parliamentarians on the eve of Monday's vote, with one newspaper reporting the price for a single MP had risen to 50 million baht ($1.4 million).
Whatever the outcome, analysts see little respite in Thailand's three-year political crisis, with Bangkok's royal and military elites pitted against Thaksin and his allies.