This is a brief message to summarize events over the past 2 weeks over formation of a new government.

Today, December 15, 2008, Parliament voted for a new Prime Minister.

The winner was from the previously opposition Democrat Party, Abhisit Vejjajiva, age 44. (His nickname is Mark.)

This is who the PAD wished for, and who the red shirt army are against. Abhisit, like many others, is not a proponent of the PAD's tactics nor many of their politics, but they did have opposition to Thaksin and his proxies as a cause in common.

So it is a major power switch.

How did this happen? The previous majority party and two of its coalition partners were dissolved on December 2nd by a court ruling on a longstanding case of electoral fraud, thereby stripping Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat of his position and dissolving the Cabinet. Somchai, the brother in law of exiled and convicted ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra, left most peacefully and very eloquently, and was quite a contrast to his proxy boss.

The vast majority of members of the dissolved ruling party (proxy of Thaksin) joined a newly created party, Puea Thai, but nearly all their coalition partners switched to the opposition, and a key group of the former ruling party also voted for the opposition's proposed Prime Minister.

The vote was 235-198.

There were two event-filled weeks of politics which I'm skipping over. You can find volumes of that elsewhere.

This included reports of offers of 55 million baht for members of dissolved parties to sign up with the new Puea Thai party and vote for their choice of prime minister.

At about this time, in the USA there was a corruption scandal about the Illinois governor secretly auctioning the vacant Senate seat created when Barack Obama won the presidential election. However, a similar situation is Thailand was just seen as "business as usual", more or less, not such a big scandal.

We can take heart that so many Thai MPs did not take the bribe! There was also an extreme amount of similar bargaining offered in the last 2 days. Yet, the vote was practically the same as was predicted in the middle of last week, so very few, if any, MPs took the bribes.

That's real progress for anti-money-politics in Thailand! Politicians can be proud of that.

Abhisit could also compete as probably the most handsome Prime Minister in the world.

Thaksin's red shirt army planned to block Parliament so that the vote couldn't happen, but not many showed up. That's also a good sign, that organizers of the red shirt army were not able to get enough people to block the formation of a new government. However, as is usually the case with protesters, some of them threw rocks at cars leaving, smashing their windows and injuring journalists and others.

Nonetheless, it looks like Thailand is back on the road to peace.

Abhisit is known as a very bright, articulate, well composed, and generally peaceful politician.

He was born in England to his Thai parents who were both PhD medical professors. His family is full of intellectuals. They are Chinese Thai going back many generations.

Abhisit has a few university degrees from UK and Thailand universities in law, economics, and political science (if I remember correctly), but no PhD.

He's known as a family man who is very close to his children and wife (an academic), and still a trendy audiophile.

Abhisit went into politics in Bangkok in the early 1990s, nearly became party leader in 2001 but lost out to an old school politician, and after the old school politician lost terribly to Thaksin Shinawatra in 2005, Abhisit was voted in as party leader. Good timing, actually.

Abhisit is known for his honesty and integrity, as well as his bright mind. However, he comes from a well to do family and may have difficulty connecting on a personal level to the poor. Also, over time, he must be able to lead and manage the experienced old political hands in his coalition. His coalition has a narrow margin based on a number of other parties, and dealing with the demands of these other parties, as well as controlling them, is a tall order.