Thailand's post-coup election unlikely to end divisions

By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thais vote on Sunday in a general election that marks the return of democracy after last year's military coup but which is unlikely to heal Thailand's deep political divisions.

Some 45 million Thais are eligible to cast their ballots when polls open at 8 a.m. (8 p.m. Saturday EST) and close 7 hours later, but few expect the country's third election in two years will solve anything.

All opinion polls suggest a sizeable victory, but not an outright majority, for the People Power Party (PPP), a vehicle for supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a bloodless putsch 15 months ago.

The PPP, which has made Thaksin's return from self-exile in London its main priority, said on Friday he could be back in February if voters handed the party a majority in the 480-seat parliament.

But analysts say the army and the royalist establishment, which Thaksin supporters blame for the coup, are unlikely to allow the PPP to cobble together a government.

They are expected to push for a coalition led by the Democrats, the main opposition during Thaksin's five years in power.

Financial markets hope the return of an elected government will signal the end of a period of disappointing economic growth, likely to fall towards four percent this year from 5.1 percent in 2006 and the lowest rate in six years.

But any coalition government is unlikely to last more than a year, analysts say.

"I don't see this election as solving anything," U.S.-based academic Kevin Hewison said.

"The emerging political system is unlikely to be inclusive. It will be dominated by a conservative palace, the royalist military and the dead weight of the bureaucracy."

Both the pro- and anti-Thaksin camps have said they will take to the streets if they feel the other side has unfairly gained an upper hand in Sunday's polls. Major protests could trigger another military coup, analysts say.

The uncertainty has worried the country's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has urged soldiers and police to use their spiritual "strength" to pull the nation out of its political mess.

Last year's coup -- the 18th in 75 years of on-off democracy -- failed to kill off Thaksin, an ethnic Chinese telecoms billionaire who won landslides in 2001 and 2005 on the back of cheap healthcare and handouts to farmers.

An election Thaksin called in 2006 to rout street protests against him was later annulled.

Despite his lengthy exile and inconclusive attempts to prosecute him for corruption, Thaksin remains the central figure in the political arena.