Anybody for Premier?

When Thailand held its general elections last February, slippery little Field Marshal Pibulsonggram was firmly in power. So many Thais turned out to vote against him that Pibul found it necessary to call out the army, declare martial law, and send his air force swooping over Bangkok's glittering temple spires to make it perfectly clear that he intended to stay in power. But last September, Army Chief Marshal Sarit Thanarat staged a bloodless coup, ousted Old Comrade Pibul, and ordered new elections.

With Pibul ensconced in sybaritic exile in Japan, there were few real differences between the major political parties. All were pro-Western, backed SEATO, and disliked Pibul's habit of courting the U.S. ambassador with soft words while simultaneously paying for the publication of violently anti-American newspapers.

To whip up pre-election enthusiasm, Democratic Party Leader Khuang Aphai-wongse and Unionist Party Chief Sukit Nimanhemin stumped the land from the cool hill country around Chiang Mai in the north to the steaming jungles of Phuket in the south. One Unionist Party candidate who had been forcibly ejected from Parliament and lodged last summer in a lunatic asylum was released in time to run again. "Is he really, really crazy?" a reporter asked Sukit. "Of course he is," said Sukit forthrightly, "but he can sure bring in the votes."

With counting still incomplete, Sukit's Unionists last week had won 45 seats, Khuang's Democrats 41, independent candidates 56. Deprived of Pibul's indirect support, the Communist-line Economist Party went down to resounding defeat, scraping through with only six seats.

All that the country needed now was a new Premier, but Sarit was having trouble filling the post. "All of those who want to be Premier," he said, "are unsuitable, and those who are suitable don't want to be Premier." Incumbent temporary Premier Pote Sarasin, a respected statesman and diplomat, was reluctant to stay, objecting that he had not even run for office. "If I, as an outsider, am made Premier," he said, "the elections will have been a sham." But democracy in Thailand is still in a controlled, experimental stage. A decisive 123 of the Parliament's 283 seats are filled by appointment, nominally by the King but in practice by the man in power--in this case, Marshal Sarit. If a candidate for Premier was not forthcoming, there was just a chance Sarit might decide to take the job himself.

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