Thai elections could be delayed to 2008-coup chief

BANGKOK, July 1 (Reuters) Thailand's post-coup general election could be pushed back until early 2008 as legal experts fear a new constitution and other laws will not be finished as planned, Army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin said today.

Sonthi, who ousted Thaksin Shinawatra's government in a bloodless coup last year, told reporters he would meet Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont to discuss possibly postponing the elections, originally set for end-2007, until a later date.

''Several academics have voiced their concern that the general election could not be held as planned, so I will bring this to discuss with the prime minister,'' Sonthi said.

It remains a distinct possibility that the charter being drawn up to replace the 1997 ''People's Constitution'' torn up in last September's military coup would be rejected in a plebiscite, analysts say.

Thaksin, currently living in exile, and his disbanded Thai Rak Thai party are expected to campaign vigorously against it.

They are likely to be joined by a variety of groups, ranging from those who want Buddhism, the faith of 90 percent of Thais, to become the state religion to human rights campaigners who say some clauses in the new charter are affronts to democracy and freedom.

Surayud said in a television interview yesterday that elections should be held between November 25 and December 23, the dates he has set, in order for the country to regain investors' confidence.

But Sonthi told reporters yesterday the president of the army-appointed parliament had told him passage of the new charter and other related laws would take longer than expected, and so the election would have to be delayed.

Other army-back lawmakers said a fierce election campaign ahead of 80th birthday celebrations for the revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, on December 5 would not be ''appropriate''.

Sonthi's comments prompted criticism from anti-coup activists that the coup leaders were trying to cling on to power, a charge Sonthi denied today.

At face value, the coup stemmed from middle-class street protests in 2006 against Thaksin's autocratic style and huge personal wealth, which his opponents say he wielded unfairly to secure unassailable support from the rural masses.

But analysts say it was as much about a royalist, military and business elite removing a nouveau riche, ethnic Chinese businessman who had encroached too far on their traditional turf.

REUTERS SG HT1147