SCENARIOS: Thailand's chaos - what lies ahead

By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's Constitutional Court disbanded the ruling People Power Party (PPP) for vote fraud on Tuesday, plunging the country deeper into chaos and raising the prospect of a violent backlash by government supporters.

The court also barred Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and other PPP leaders from politics for five years.

The following scenarios look at how things might pan out:

CONSTITUTIONAL PARALYSIS

- Most rank-and-file PPP MPs have escaped the ban and are simply switching to Puea Thai (For Thailand), a "shell" party already lined up.

A spokesman said Puea Thai wanted parliament to meet on December 8 to vote for a new prime minister.

As long as the six-party ruling coalition led by the PPP/Puea Thai hangs together -- and it has vowed to stay united -- it should have the parliamentary numbers needed to choose a new prime minister and thereby form the next administration.

The only problem will be getting parliament to convene.

Activists from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which says the PPP is simply a front for ousted and exiled leader Thaksin Shinawatra, are sure to converge on parliament in their thousands, as they did last week, to try to force postponement of the session.

If parliament cannot meet, Thailand will slide deeper into chaos, with no government and the constitution paralyzed.

Various reports doing the rounds of Bangkok's chattering classes suggest the judiciary will break the deadlock by suspending the constitution and appointing an interim council, mainly of judges, to run the country.

STREET VIOLENCE

- Even before Tuesday's court ruling, the pro-government Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD) condemned any dissolution as a "judicial coup."

At any point in the coming days or weeks, DAAD anger at what it sees as Bangkok's royalist elite stealing control of the country from an elected government may boil over into an attack on the PAD or its allies in the opposition Democrat party.

Major street violence could trigger a military coup, even though the army, whose natural sympathies probably lie with the pro-palace PAD, is loath to intervene since it will then be the target of DAAD wrath.