Parliament on Friday postponed a vote, thai news

Parliament on Friday postponed a vote on a new prime minister until Wednesday after the People Power party split over whether to re-nominate sacked Samak Sundaravej and coalition partners refused to get closely involved. Mr Samak had been favoured briefly to retain the job he lost last Tuesday over his TV cooking shows. But the failure by many of his own People Power Party (PPP) members to show up for Friday's vote demonstrated the strong opposition to his reinstatement. House Speaker Chai Chidchob decided to postpone the special session on technical grounds - that a quorum was not present, meaning at least half the 480 members of the House of Representatives. The meeting has been rescheduled for Wednesday. But the postponement emphasised deep divisions within the ruling People Power party, and within the six-party coalition which gives PPP a working majority in the lower House. As of Friday morning, only the Newin's Friends faction of the PPP, controlled by Buri Ram political powerhouse Newin Chidchob, stood behind Mr Samak - and that was only around 90 MPs. Other factions from the North, Isan and central Thailand opposed Mr Samak from within the PPP, and the five political allies indicated they would have to hold their nose to vote for the ousted premier - if they voted for him at all. On Thursday, Mr Samak had been briefly the leading candidate to become prime minister again, even though he just lost the job when the Constitution Court found him guilty of violating the charter by excepting outside employment during his premiership. Although the court's guilty verdict forced Mr Samak to resign his post, it did not strip him of his member of parliament status, paving the way for his possible re-election by his PPP, which holds 223 of the 480 seats in the lower chamber. Somchai Petprasert, a PPP member of Parliament, had said about 70 PPP lawmakers would abstain from voting for Samak Friday because they felt he would not be able to solve the country's political crisis. It was unclear whether the PPP majority or even Mr Newin would continue to push Mr Samak's nomination next week. "The PPP still supports Mr Samak, but if there is no way out, we may have to dissolve parliament and let the people decide again," said Jatuporn Promphan, a deputy government spokesman. Although Mr Samak's renomination by the PPP was controversial, it demonstrated the lack of political options within the party, which has been dogged by its close ties to ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a bloodless military coup on September 19, 2006, analysts said. Mr Samak, who became premier in February, has been the target of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) anti-government movement, which seized Government House, the seat of the administration, on August 26 and has occupied it since. The PAD insists it would not vacate Government House until Mr Samak and the PPP are out of power. The PAD, which has the silent support of Thailand's political elite and has proven untouchable by the military, was instrumental in paving the way for the downfall of Thaksin two years ago. PAD leaders view Mr Samak, 73, a right-wing politician who has been a well-known figure in Thai politics (and on cooking shows) for the past four decades. In the 2007 election, he was seen by many as an admitted proxy for the toppled Thaksin regime. As prime minister, Mr Samak demonstrated some independence from Mr Thaksin, who is now living in exile in London with his wife and family. Although Mr Samak had good relations with the military's top brass, they were not good enough to win the army's support in confronting the PAD. Mr Samak declared Bangkok under a state of emergency on Sept 2, outlawing all gatherings of more than five people, but the military flatly refused to enforce the decree on the PAD followers at Government House, who number in the thousands. "As a prime minister, I think Samak is a spent force, but the PPP doesn't have anyone else anywhere near his stature," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University and an Oped analyst of the Bangkok Post. "It's the beginning of Thailand's end game," said Mr Thitinan of the showdown that has paralysed Thailand's government for weeks.