The Democrat, Chart Thai and Mahachon parties are hoping to benefit from the type of hype that surrounded Thai Rak Thai in "the battle of brains" four years ago, but instead they have run out of political ideas and have become the thing they hate.

The "Big Three" opponents of Thai Rak Thai have portrayed themselves as ardent campaigners against populist policies, their whipping boy when they try to convince voters of the economic cost of the ruling bloc's management.

They told voters repeatedly they would not follow Thai Rak Thai, but the failure to devise orginal ground-breaking political platforms forced them to resort to almost any means simply to avoid a thumping defeat.

Now they are singing the same populist siren songs as Thai Rak Thai, but political pundits question their wisdom.

Thai Rak Thai, boasting about its achievements in repairing the country's economic damage during its four years in office, has boosted its profile even higher by promising to continue in order to further rebuild Thailand into a sustainable economy.

Populism remains the party's public relations machine. This time, leader Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has made sure Thai Rak Thai has all the solutions for every perceived need of every segment of Thai society other than the grassroots.

For rural communities, Thai Rak Thai has pledged to send caravans of experts throughout the country to give people knowledge, give them jobs, give their children schools and generally give them the tools to grow into quality Thai citizens.

It also has a "special purpose vehicle" (SPV) programme to lend to farmers, who then can repay with their agricultural produce. TRT has plans to turn village funds wih high rates of debt repayments into village banks, and to allocate development budget directly to rural areas through the small-medium-large (SML) village scheme, and to provide two million head of cattle to farmers, and to bring electricity and tapwater to every home.

In the cities, Thai Rak Thai would give every family its own home, renovate slums, spend one trillion baht on 291-km extensions of the Skytrain and subway, build more schools and hospitals, cut taxes for people with dependent parents, and continue its fight against drugs.

The Democrat Party has tried to break Thai Rak Thai's power grip with its proposals: Free education and medical services, jobs for indebted people, promotion of a self-sufficient economy with retail and direct sales and abolition of business monopolies. The Democrats promise to turn Thailand into world hubs for tourism, medicine, organic farming and services. They will have welfare funds for the poor, low-interest loans for the needy and a reduction of tax charged on juristic persons.

Mahachon separated from the Democrats last year. Its leader Anek Laothamatas is offering free schooling for poor people through university, special privileges and welfare for teachers, special funds to promote education through the private sector and local administration organisations, free medical service for poor people and families, a cheque for 1,200 baht every month to old people, low-interest loans for overseas Thai workers, and debt settlement programmes.

Mahachon also would promote power decentralisation and participatory democracy. It wants to transform Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan and Phuket into metropolises.

More prosaically, Mahachon promises to enforce the law that requires the national government to give 35% of the national budget to local governments. But it also would push for amendments to the constitution to cut the number of MPs needed to sponsor a censure motion against the prime minister from two-fifths of the 500 House seats to one-fifth.

Both Democrats and Mahachon also promise to abolish the CEO-style of management and cancel both the privatisation of state enterprises and sales of the two-and-three-digit lottery numbers.

Chart Thai, meanwhile, has appealed to rural folks. For starters, they promise to guarantee farm prices.

Sombat Thamrongthanyawong of the National Institute of Development Administration's faculty of public administration, believes populism has already proved to be most attractive electioneering promises, so "policy clones" should not raise many eyebrows.

"It is a way of buying votes, with the buyers being able to keep their wallets shut while lavishly spending the national budget and taxpayers' money," Mr Sombat said.

Populist measures had never been an option before Thai Rak Thai came on the scene, because previous governments did not want to undermine fiscal discipline.

But Thai Rak Thai "knew no fear" and went "unorthodox," and then was emboldened to do it more and with ever-bigger amounts of money, eventually leaving contenders behind in the election contest.

"Other parties see that Thai Rak Thai is not worried about what will happen to the economy, so they all think `Why do we have to care?"' Mr Sombat said. "Instead of learning from mistakes, they make matters even worse."

The academic said Thai Rak Thai had never ceased to amaze while the rest had merely shown they cannot think outside the box.

Mr Sombat believes that since voters are convinced they can still benefit from Thai Rak Thai's political giveaways, and do not trust other parties to do a better job, the Thaksin government's second term now looks to be a certainty.

"That is why the Democrat party's campaign for 201 seats has become a laughing stock," he said. "People can't see how that can happen."

Mr Sombat said the Democrats' goal could even backfire if voters think the party is asking too much and shun them.

Sompob Manarangsan, an economist at Chulalongkorn University, considers it a pity that major parties all have turned to populism, because it threatens the country's resources for national development as people and the private sector stop improving and simply wait for a promised government handout.

Mr Sompob said no party offers alternatives to populism, policies to end chronic poverty or measures to revive the economy in the short, medium or long term,

"They are competing by pledging to give even more and more. They do not have policies that appeal to the middle class. They can not show us they have brains. They only want to win the election," he said. Opposition parties lack vision and cannot position themselves as alternatives to Thai Rak Thai.

"They cannot make voters see how they will benefit from not electing Thai Rak Thai," he said.

The Democrat Party, in particular, was a big disappointment to Mr Sompob, as its management has failed to attract the attention of voters to their candidates.

"That party seems to have lost all its strength. It does not look like the same party that had spurred Apirak Kosayodhin to his victory in the Bangkok governor's election last August," he said.

Mr Sompob dismisses the idea that the Democrats or even the Big Three opposition parties combined will win 201 seats, and predicts Thai Rak Thai will sweep at least 300 seats in the lower House.

Somjai Phagaphasvivat, a Thammasat University political scientist, basically agrees. The Big Three tried to sell themselves as completely different from Thai Rak Thai, but their policy principles look less strategic and are poorly organised compared with the ruling party.

Mr Somjai said among Thai Rak Thai rivals, Mahachon looked "much more dangerous" than the Democrats because it proposed progressive welfare and declared war on business monopolies.

"If Thai Rak Thai is rightist, Mahachon is leftist," he said.

He judges Chart Thai as the worst, with policies that display a total lack of political ideology and summarises them like this:

"Thai Rak Thai is a strategic party, Mahachon ideological, Chart Thai practical, Democrat partially practical but absolutely not ideological."

Because the opposition parties have not translated the decline in Thai Rak Thai's popularity into a significant boost for themselves, the best chance to at least reduce the majority of the ruling party has passed them by, he said.

Since then, government reaction to the Dec 26 tsunami, has boosted the TRT approval ratings and should help the party win 320 to 340 House seats, Mr Somjai predicted. Democrats might get 80 to 100, Chart Thai 30 and Mahachon 10.

But Mr Somjai said there is a chance the outcome could change in the last few days. That would require a turnout in full force of two groups on Sunday: what he calls "the fixed votes" _ academics, non-governmental organisations and businessmen who have doubted Mr Thaksin's democratic credentials and already decided to vote against Thai Rak Thai _ and the possible silent majority who want to see a better balance of power.