HONG KONG — Abhisit Vejjajiva seems the least likely person to rescue Thailand from what commentators claim are the death throes of democracy. He is boyish-looking, physically slight, has no commanding military or police connections, no reputation for wheeling and dealing, and was foreign born and educated, albeit at the top people's school in Britain — Eton — and then at its best university — Oxford.
His failure to make his presence felt in the tumultuous political street theater playing in Bangkok these past few months counts against him. Or was it the aloofness of a gentleman who did not deign to stoop to the grimy gutter world of Thai politics? Even worse.
These factors have led critics, Thai and foreign, to claim that Khun Abhisit is a puppet, though they argue over who is pulling his strings — the royal court, the bureaucracy, the military, the Bangkok elite or the anti-Thaksin Shinawatra mob.