Abhisit-Chavalit-Thaksin-Hun Sen: all politics is local

IS THERE anything wrong about a country's opposition leader embarking on a diplomatic tour of neighbouring countries?

There's nothing unusual in it - except when it becomes an extension of a long-standing domestic political conflict. It's interference in domestic affairs - in reverse.

When one party to the conflict drags the leader of a foreign country into the local political face-off, you get into a triangular mess. Disruptive diplomacy is the name of the game, and you initiate it at your own risk - and the country's peril.

General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh - "Big Jiew" - has announced that he plans to visit at least eight countries as "chairman" of the main opposition Pheu Thai Party. But does he present himself as the alternative to the incumbent prime minister of Thailand - or simply former premier Thaksin Shinawatra's proxy?

Chavalit's first venture into diplomatic one-upmanship in his comeback show in Cambodia was, in terms of how the trip worsened the soured relations between the two countries, nothing short of a fiasco. He came back from a meeting with Cambodian Premier Hun Sen not to tell the Thai people how he had placated the Khmer leader over the Preah Vihear issue - but to declare Hun Sen's pro-Thaksin stand against the current government.

In other words, whether deliberately or not, Chavalit managed to stoke fears of increased divisiveness in the country. Hun Sen, not surprisingly, seems delighted to have been drawn into the Thai domestic political game.

It's a rare windfall indeed for Hun Sen to be able to exploit a Thai ex-premier in order to negotiate with the current Thai leader. Hun Sen has only Chavalit and Thaksin to thank for "intervening" on his behalf in his spat with Thailand today.

And when politicians get entangled in personal business deals - when premiers and ex-PMs are suspected of having been business associates across the border in one form or another - diplomacy simply cannot be viewed from one formal dimension any more.

Chavalit was therefore not all that convincing when he tried to explain how he was defending Thailand's national interests, when he was more concerned and excited about the prospect of Thaksin being granted political asylum in Cambodia.

Now, Chavalit's next stop is Malaysia. The lack of blatant "conflict of interests" involving politicians on both sides should lead to a bipartisan approach from the Thai side. And perhaps here is where, for the first time, opposition leader Chavalit and PM Abhisit could join hands in dealing with the drawn-out problems in the deep South.

Chavalit's personal links to certain elements on the Thai-Malaysian border could help enhance the solution-seeking process - although some of his personal efforts in the past in initiating "secret negotiations" with certain dissident elements had produced more noise than substance.

But Chavalit's role, if and when it's de-linked from Thaksin - who left a highly negative legacy in the South - could still be considered a plus factor.

The Democrat Party's well-known political base in the South has so far proved distressingly ineffective in pursuing solutions to the violence in the region. Their excuse is that they are powerless and have been without the necessary resources since they were in the opposition.

Now that they are in power, the Democrats can ill afford to hide behind the same old wall of inaction. Neither can they blame Chavalit on this score. It is not likely, after having created a storm on the Cambodian side, that he will be asking Malaysian Premier Najib Razak to offer political asylum to Thaksin. Nor is it likely that Najib will want to be pulled into a dangerous game such as this.

Najib has said that Chavalit is an old friend and that he is more than happy to work with Abhisit to help restore peace in Thailand's deep South.

Wouldn't it be a real coup if someone could get Abhisit, Chavalit and Najib together in the troubled area to make a big show of the perfect combination of domestic reconciliation and unity of purpose across the border?

All politics is domestic, after all.