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BANGKOK, Sep 26 (Reuters) Former World Trade Organisation head Supachai Panitchpakdi has agreed to be Thailand's new prime minister, newspapers said today, as the country's military rulers unveiled a plan to return gradually to the barracks.

However, promises from army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin to restore democracy within a year of last week's bloodless coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra sounded like a re-run of a military putsch in 1991, analysts said.

''If previous coups are anything to go by, the question is not whether it's going to go wrong, but when it will go wrong -- and how badly,'' said Duncan McCargo, professor of Southeast Asian Politics at Britain's Leeds University.

After the 1991 coup, Thailand's 17th since the 1930s, the army appointed a civilian prime minister in a week and promised elections within six months -- but actually held them in 13.

This time, they have promised an interim prime minister in two weeks and elections under a new constitution in 12 months, leading to suggestions they simply dusted off the 1991 ''roadmap to democracy'' and gave it a slightly inflated timeline.

''It does seem the coup group were not completely prepared for what they would do next. They don't have a masterplan,'' McCargo told a seminar in Singapore. ''You have to take the events of 1991 as a basic template.'' Worryingly for Thais and investors, a general was appointed prime minister in 1992 after an inconclusive election result, leading to mass protests and several days of clashes between demonstrators and soldiers in which scores of people were killed.

MANY POSSIBLE CANDIDATES Thai newspapers and analysts have tossed around at least six names as replacement prime minister, further supporting suspicions the generals did not have a clear plan in place when they sent in the tanks.

The Nation newspaper, citing ''high-placed sources'', said Supachai, among the early front-runners, had agreed to the post after persuasion from top royal adviser Prem Tinsulanonda.

Thai-language papers carried similar reports.

Besides his international experience at the WTO and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Supachai has held a number of government posts, including that of commerce minister after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Sonthi refused to confirm the reports, saying mainly that the appointee must be honest.

''I have someone in mind, but would rather not say it at this time. I will try to pick a prime minister as soon as possible,'' he told a news conference.

A woman at UNCTAD offices in Geneva said Supachai was ''very busy this week'' with meetings away from the office and was not expected to make any overseas trips within the next fortnight.

The interim prime minister would have free rein to make decisions and appoint his 35-member cabinet under a stop-gap constitution to be submitted for royal approval at the end of this week, Sonthi said.

With Thai- and English-language editorials suggesting support for the coup had a limited shelf-life, Sonthi also repeated an initial promise to step back once a civilian government was in place and to lift martial law ''as soon as possible''.

SCANNERS SCANNED Thaksin, who won election landslides in 2001 and 2005 before his authority was challenged by mass street protests in Bangkok, remains in London while army-appointed graft-busters take over probes into alleged corruption by his administration.

With a remit to decide whether he, his family, cabinet colleagues and their families abused power ''for the benefits of themselves and others'', the anti-graft panel could freeze and ultimately seize assets, said its head, Sawat Chotepanich.

Auditor-General Jaruwan Maintaka, already deep into an investigation of the purchase of 26 high-tech US-made bomb scanners for Bangkok's new international airport, said she had agreed to hand over her findings.

Other cases before the panel when it convenes tomorrow will be a probe into whether Thaksin's family legitimately paid no tax on its $1.9 billion sale of Shin Corp, the telecoms firm he founded.

Its brief does not include a probe into whether the sale of Shin Corp to Singapore state investment firm Temasek Holdings breached foreign ownership laws. That issue is already under a separate Commerce Ministry investigation.

REUTERS AB KN1638