IT HAS become a sick joke among observers of veteran politicians at work: The more they talk about national reconciliation, the more divided they become.

In other words: Why is national unity such a divisive subject?

In a way, the answer isn't all that complicated. The term "unity" or "reconciliation" is there to be exploited by politicians whose only aim seems to be to make things favourable enough for them to win the next election.

If the opposition Pheu Thai Party appears to be split into various factions on this issue, rest assured it isn't about how to amend the constitution. It is crude, pure and simple: How to get Thaksin Shinawatra, the real owner of the party, off the hook.

Of course, you can't say that openly. To make it all sound nice, patriotic and visionary, the opposition MPs have been drumming up support for "reconciliation". If that doesn't sound convincing enough, they resort to blaming the current constitution for being "dictatorial".

First, they thought by joining the government and the Senate, Pheu Thai could apply enough pressure to change some of the "unfavourable" clauses. But they apparently didn't get the right message from Dubai.

When Pheu Thai's chief whip Witthaya Buranasiri went along with the government and upper house whips to hammer out a six-point amendment and to go for a referendum, Thaksin was mad. That wasn't good enough for him. How could those "insignificant changes" get him out of his political limbo?

Witthaya and Chalerm appear in a press conference together on Wedensday to try to show they are still united.

Somewhere, somehow the wires got crossed from Dubai to Bangkok. Chalerm Yoobamroong, the party's so-called "chairman of MPs" declared the whole process was off. Pheu Thai was pulling out of the charter-amendment process. Opposition chief whip Wittaya took a different position. He said the party was still involved in the charter amendment scheme - but wouldn't endorse a referendum.

If the message got confused from Dubai, you can only blame one man: Thaksin wasn't sure himself what route to pursue.

First, he wanted the current charter amended to drop a few clauses that he considered "too harsh" - in other words, those provisions that led to his Thai Rak Thai and People Power parties being dissolved and him being banned from politics for five years due to electoral fraud.

The idea of a referendum to pass or reject the new constitution draft was never an issue for him, since he was confident that his party could win a majority in any public electoral test.

But then, he had second thoughts. If he is to start with a clean slate, a few changes here and there won't help. He needs a total constitutional makeover. Perhaps, if the 1997 Constitution could be brought back in its entirety, a real political reversal could materialise.

That's when Thaksin, without having properly consulted his lieutenants in the party, went on his Internet radio programmes to start a new theme: "Why waste Bt2 billion to conduct the referendum, just to poll the electorate on six proposed changes in the constitution? If money had to be spent anyway, why not just ask the public whether we should bring back the 1997 Constitution?"

It was as if his senior party executives in Thailand were taking orders by listening to his radio shows - and because his message wasn't clear-cut in the first place, Wittaya and Chalerm came up with two different interpretations. The long-simmering rift between the two then broke into the open.

If charity begins at home, then national reconciliation should likewise start within the party itself.

When Pheu Thai announced a confusing "withdrawal" from the charter-amendment plan, the domestic political circle was quick to declare: Pheu Thai has fallen into the Democrats' trap.

Why? Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, without much hesitation, immediately put the blame on the opposition, saying: "Don't forget that we the Democrats didn't really want this process to start in the first place."

What that means is: We are back to square one. Things will get worse before they get better.

That's because the politicians have somehow managed to make the topic of unity a really divisive one.