The Democrat Party's solidarity will be put to the test once again after the Bangkok governor election blows over.
Chalermchai: Bowing out
A source inside the main opposition party said Chalermchai Sri-on is stepping down as secretary-general after the governor poll, to be held on March 3.
A number of party insiders will not be sad to see Mr Chalermchai leave, according to the source.
The party with Mr Chalermchai in the engine room has failed to shine and has not grown as much or as fast as the members would have liked.
Mr Chalermchai, probably one of the least talked-about Democrat secretary-generals, has lived largely as a political recluse.
He was elected to the post with the support of party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva two years ago. Mr Abhisit entrusted Mr Chalermchai, a real estate businessman and owner of a pineapple canning factory in his native Prachuap Khiri Khan, to do his homework.
But Mr Chalermchai was always going to be fighting the odds in trying to expand the party's stronghold beyond its traditional turf in the South.
Mr Chalermchai was also required to lead the way in making inroads into constituencies in the Central Plains provinces. The party also envisaged tapping into the North and the Northeast, the two regions dominated by the ruling Pheu Thai Party.
But the general election in 2011 came as a rude reality check for the party after it failed to establish a significant foothold in many constituencies it had set its sights on winning.
All the while, Mr Chalermchai himself has lived in a publicity blind spot, barely seen or heard from in the media.
His office at the party headquarters is rarely frequented by party members. Rather, all roads appear to lead still to the office down the hall occupied by Suthep Thaugsuban, Mr Chalermchai's predecessor who commands wide respect within the party.
Perhaps the worst setback for Mr Chalermchai, which may have pushed him to call it quits, was his inability to muster enough support for deputy party leader Korn Chatikavanij to represent the party in the next Bangkok governor election.
MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra won the party's vote to contest the March 3 election, edging out Mr Korn by several votes. However, Mr Korn's defeat in the candidacy nomination was an embarrassment for Mr Chalermchai, who as the party secretary-general, fell short of getting the person of his choice on the party ticket.
However, Mr Chalermchai has not given up on Mr Korn, said the source.
Mr Chalermchai is said to be throwing his support behind Mr Korn to be his successor as he is all fired-up to work behind the scenes with what little is left of his influence.
Prayuth pressed from all sides
The colour-coded conflict seemingly knows no bounds, and the army chief is learning there are no permanent friends, or foes, in the political divide.
Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha was one of the engineers of the Sept 19, 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra. As army chief, he was also fingered by the red shirts as being culpable over the deaths of protesters in the clashes with the military at the height of the political violence three years ago.
But the red shirts' enmity toward the army commander-in-chief is not eternal.
Prayuth: Rash of phone calls
Now Gen Prayuth appears to be on amicable terms with the government, which claims loyalty from the red shirts.
After Gen Prayuth had a spat with the People's Alliance for Democracy co-founder Sondhi Limthongkul over the army chief's stand on the Preah Vihear border dispute, he was branded by the yellow shirts as no longer ''one of them''.
The conflict between Mr Sondhi and the general intensified after a group of army officers showed up at the head office of ASTV Manager, the PAD's broadcast and print arm, to protest against the newspaper's criticism of Gen Prayuth.
Although in the end Gen Prayuth apologised for the confrontation, it did nothing to clear the air for ASTV and the PAD.
Gen Prayuth said he has been on the receiving end since the conflict erupted. People have called in to his many mobile phones and berated him for not being patriotic.
He said he was bombarded with calls, mostly from women, until he could not stand it any more.
A source close to the army chief said in light of the spat, Gen Prayuth's personal aide had been assigned to answer the calls made to the commander's phones.
But the aide also could not tolerate the slew of tirades and scathing remarks vented against Gen Prayuth. The phones were eventually switched off.
The source said the conflict with ASTV was resolved possibly after a person the army chief respected urged him to offer an apology.
In the near future, however, the fallout between Gen Prayuth and ASTV might be history.
The army could once again find common ground with the PAD when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hands down a ruling on the Preah Vihear temple dispute later this year.
Phnom Penh has asked the ICJ to interpret its 1962 judgement which awarded the temple to Cambodia. The ruling, however, did not mention an area of 4.6 square kilometres surrounding the temple, which both countries claim.
Oral hearings are set to take place on April 15-19 and a verdict is expected in October.
The PAD has consistently demanded a tougher stand against Cambodia over the lingering dispute. Many yellow-shirt members criticise the government for being soft toward Cambodia. The opposition also earlier accused the Foreign Affairs Ministry of being half-hearted in defending the country's sovereignty.
The good luck in 'Yingluck'
Now into her second year in office, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra continues to wear a dazzling array of beautiful clothes from her wardrobe that are different each day.
But what catches the attention of most people are the numbers on her vehicle licence plates, particularly on the 16th and 30th of each month when the lottery is drawn.
It is in the nature of a lot of Thais to have a bit of a flutter on everything, and on the eve of the day when the lottery is drawn, some newspapers devote precious column inches to colourful stories involving superstitions and bizarre things that people interpret as lucky numbers to wager on the result.
Yingluck: Her days are numbered
As it happens, the prime minister's licence plate numbers sometimes turn out to be exactly the lottery numbers drawn.
Even the number on the licence plate of a bus which she once rode to inspect the floods was the lucky number drawn in the lottery.
Some believe Ms Yingluck has the charm to bring them luck, but others wonder whether the lottery result is rigged. After all, many people have struck it rich by closely following the licence plate numbers of her vehicles.
Ms Yingluck recently attended mobile cabinet meetings in Uttaradit, Tak and Sukhothai and three cars were arranged for her to travel in. The vehicles bore different licence plate numbers.
When she visited Mae Sot district in Tak, the licence number of her vehicle was 8899 and in next to no time lottery tickets bearing the numbers were sold out.
When she arrived in Sukhothai to inspect a flood prevention project at the historic park, she rode in a car with the licence plate number 1177. As expected, the lottery tickets with the numbers available in the province were all snapped up.
In Uttaradit, local people scrambled for lottery tickets with the number 6666 _ the licence plate number of her vehicle during her visit there. The rush to get the numbers spread to other neighbouring provinces where all the lottery tickets with the sought-after numbers became a rarity overnight.
Some past governments were plagued with allegations that some of the lottery profits, which constitute an enormous pool of funds, were siphoned off to spend on projects in order to win over voters in the provinces.
Some poverty eradication projects in the past were among such projects which allegedly benefited from a lottery money windfall, according to political sources.
The lottery money was also allegedly spent to promote other projects which were initiated by politicians with close ties to the powers-that-be.