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BANGKOK: Thai lawmakers cast their ballots Monday for the country's third prime minister in four months, with the opposition confident of finally taking power after half a year of crippling protests.
Heavy security surrounded parliament for the special session, with British-born opposition Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva the front runner to head up a new government.
The Democrats say they have wooed enough lawmakers to install the 44-year-old Abhisit and fill the void left when a court early this month disbanded the ruling party linked to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
But last-minute lobbying and shifting allegiances mean the result will not be certain until the votes are counted, with allies of Thaksin in the dissolved People Power Party (PPP) insisting they can cling to power.
"We are confident that we will win a majority but it will be very close," said Pormpong Nopparit, a spokesman for Puea Thai, the new pro-Thaksin party formed from the ruins of the PPP.
He said their candidate, Pracha Promnog, head of the small Puea Pandin party which was formerly part of the ruling coalition, "will become the next prime minister for national reconciliation."
The incoming premier must receive a simple majority of 220 in the vote, which is expected to last at least one hour.
A feared protest by red-shirted Thaksin supporters fizzled with only about 100 rallying outside parliament.
The vote follows six months of increasingly disruptive protests by the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which peaked with a week-long blockade of Bangkok's airports beginning in late November.
The turmoil left 350,000 passengers stranded and has badly hit Thailand's international image and its economy, with GDP growth forecast at just two per cent next year.
PAD supporters said the previous government was running the nation on behalf of Thaksin, and had already occupied the prime minister's offices since August and forced the suspension of parliament on one occasion.
Thaksin was overthrown in a coup in 2006 and remains in exile abroad to avoid corruption charges.
Since elections returned democracy to Thailand in December 2007, the Constitutional Court has removed two Thaksin-linked PPP prime ministers.
In September this year, the court ruled that the elected premier Samak Sundaravej must be stripped of office because he hosted TV cooking shows.
On December 2, the court dissolved the PPP and handed a five-year political ban to then-premier Somchai Wongsawat, who is Thaksin's brother-in-law, over vote fraud charges dating back to last December's polls.
Twice-elected Thaksin alienated elements of the old elite in the palace, military and bureaucracy, who saw his immense popularity among the urban and rural poor as a drain on some of their power.
Oxford-educated Abhisit failed to win over Thaksin's rural supporters in the elections, but is believed to have the backing of the kingdom's old establishment.
Thawee Suraritikul, a political science professor at Sukhothai University, said that if Abhisit did get the nomination the Democrats would be faced with a shaky coalition and a slim majority.
"Their first three months will be a crucial period. They have many problems waiting for them - economics, and the sharing of power among coalition partners," he told AFP.
PAD leaders, who suspended their protests when the court dissolved the PPP, have vowed to take to the streets again if they do not approve of Monday's choice of prime minister.
- AFP/yb
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