Let me first start by condenming the action of the red-shirt protesters who broke into the ASEAN Summit venue and who attacked PM and senior government officials' cars. These actions are violent, illegal and unacceptable. Better democracy cannot be achieved through violent and illegitimate means like this.

It should become obvious by now that Thaksin is willing to do anything and pay any price that will allow him to return to Thailand. Although some of what he has been saying about Thailand's bureaucratic polity has valid grounds, he does not seem to be the right person to lead the cause for better democracy. 

As such, for the not-so-extreme red-shirt protesters who want better democracy, they should have realized by now that joining the red-shirt rally, driven so powerfully by Thaksin, is not the right way to fight their cause.

On the government side, Prime Minister Abhisit has not provided anything close to effective leadership. He pledged, when he came into office, that he would foster reconcialition. He has not been able to do that. The recent developments also clearly suggest that he does not have full control over the nation's security forces. He isn't helped by the apparent fact that the army and the police chiefs also do not have full control over their subordinates. Very much like Thai society, the army and the police are internally divided.

To be fair to Abhisit, he is indeed in a very tough position. After all, it is very difficult to be a good, clean, effective prime minister in Thailand when you have to rely so much on factions within your party, leaders of other coalition parties, the military and the police.

Because the military and the police have so much power in politics, the PM needs to intervene in the military and the police or risks losing control of what is supposedly your own security forces. The PM also needs to allow the various factions in the coalition to corrupt or risks losing their support and thus the PM's seat.

This is why Thai politics is in trouble. When we have a strong leader like Thaksin, he intervenes everywhere to consolidate his power and engages in corrupt activities to benefit himself and his allies, so that he could become a popularly elected authoritarian leader. When we have a weak coalition government and a relatively weak leader like Abhisit, the government is at risk of losing control of the security forces and has to give in to people like Newin.

Indeed, our parliamentary democracy is imperfect but indeed, too, military coups have proven, time and again, not to be the right solutions. Street protests that turn violent and seemingly have no limits and are not subject to any rule of law are also not what Thailand needs.

I don't know how Thai politics can get out of this current crisis. In the longer term, I'm not sure how the political system should be improved either. But the goals, in my opinion, are clear:

1. We should have a civilian government that comes to power through free and fair elections.

2. We want the government to address people's problems effectively.

3. We want to have a military and police force that are subordinate to civilian government. Their political power must be removed, so that civilian politicians do not have to please them.

4. We want to have a system that holds the government accountable of any wrongdoings.

5. The mass must have the appropriate political space to express their opinion and criticize the government, but this space must be strictly within the limits of the rule of law and must not undermine the rights of others.

6. The judiciary must be independent and impartial, free from intervention by powerful political forces.

I believe this is the ideal system that most of us all desrie. These conditions are common sense, but the events in recent years have shown us that none of these conditions are fulfilled.

Today, the Thai public must not get carried away by high emotions, and this also applies specially to the media. Every sides have their valid claims and even within each side, there exist different viewpoints, some more extreme than others. The tendency to oppose (or support) the "PAD" or the "red shirts" as if these movements represent a unified and coherent group of people will almost always lead us to overlook the real issues at play and take extreme positions.

In my view, what the Abhisit government should do now is to stop insulting or denouncing the red-shirt protesters as if every red-shirt protester is bad and brainwashed by Thaksin. Not every red-shirt protester agrees with what happened in the last two days and not every protester is fighting for Thaksin. Insulting and denouncing them as "enemy of the state" only make the protesters even more angrier. Organizing the blue-shirt mobs is also detrimental.

Instead, the government should limit its condemnation to only the protesters who break the rule of law so clearly. To the rest of the red shirts, the PM must show strong willingness toward reconcialition. Even if Thaksin denies any talks, the PM must unilaterally act to show that he understands the reds' concern about the flaws in the political system and that he will seriously and quickly initiate reform process that involves the wider public.

He has to show at least some kind of recognition that the many events that took place since September 2006 have not been ordinary and deserve re-investigation (such as the ban on 111 ex-TRT executives as well as 100+ exectutives of other parties). 

House dissolution, unfortunately, is not going to improve Thai politics. Any potential military coup, also, is unlikely to solve the problem.  While there is nothing much that the PM can do to stop Thaksin from arousing the crowd, what the PM chooses to do is certainly within his control.

In this very tough time, Abhisit must do something extraordinary against all odds because even though he faces many constraints and difficulties, he is still the prime minister; it is his job to show some courage and intelligence and provide the necessary leadership to guide this country out of this mess, especially when many other groups are highly emotionally charged and are behaving recklessly.