With many doubts and uncertain factors until the eve of Sunday, Thailand's parliamentary election will go on within twelve hours as many people have closely observed the snap election since last month's House dissolution.

However, many analysts predict that the election is unlikely to be end-point of the political turmoil since many conflict elements still root deeply in Thai political arena, which can not be simply resolved by vote.

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a telecoms tycoon- turned-politician, called for a snap election on Feb. 24 amid a credibility crisis since his family's 73.3 billion baht (US$ 1.9 billion) sale of the Thaksin-founded Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings late January.

Since then, by boycotting the April 2 polls, the opposition parties have allied themselves to a mass movement determined to force Thaksin to resign and called on voters to tick the "absent ion" boxes that appear on all Thai ballot papers.

Somchai Srisuthiyakorn, coordinator of the People's Network for Elections (P-Net), a non governmental organization, predicted that since many "absent ion" boxes will appear during Sunday's elections, by-elections will definitely be held following and the first House of Representatives session will not be able to convene within 30 days as required by law.

According to the constitution of Thailand, all the 500 seats of parliament's lower house must be filled for a prime minister to be elected and a government formed. And even in an uncontested constituency, a candidate must win 20 percent of the eligible vote for that particular seat to win.

Therefore, analysts estimated that Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party will struggle to meet this 20 percent threshold in at least 60 constituencies and by-elections would be held in these constituencies where only one TRT candidate is contesting.

There is also a high possibility that by-elections would be held more than one times in some of these constituencies, making it impossible for the House of Representatives to hold its first meeting within 30 days of the election as required by law, Somchai said.

Otherwise, according to a recent survey conducted by local universities, most eligible voters across Thailand are likely to exercise their right by a kind of "absent participation" in the April 2 general election.

The survey found that 45.4 percent of voters interviewed in Bangkok and 11 other provinces in all parts of Thailand said they would cast their ballots on the Sunday's election, but would abstain from voting for any candidate or party.

Only 20 percent of the respondents revealed they would still vote for the TRT Party of Thaksin. But Thaksin has reiterated that he would not return to his post if his party candidates received less than half of the votes cast in the general election.

Meanwhile, deep-seated problems are emerging since late last year when the anti-Thaksin movement began to stage, such as the rifts between the advantaged urban classes and the rural poor, between political groups that once could have compromised and even among family members.

Some local analysts said that the splits among the ideologies of Thais are more important than the political itself. They will damage the nation's holistic power at every aspect including economy, culture and comity.

Last week, Thaksin offered to form a government of national unity that will include all his opponents. This seemed a unity solution for the crisis. But it was suddenly rejected by the opposition parties and the anti-Thaksin groups.

As many efforts of Thaksin have failed working before his opponents, Thai political crisis shows more blur factors. Anyway, Sunday's snap election will go along, no matter to which direction the political tide will be led.

(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2006)