Thai Businessman Anand Named Caretaker Premier : Asia: Appointment is intended to avert further bloodshed. He is chosen over military-backed candidate.

In a move apparently aimed at averting further bloodshed in Thailand, a respected businessman was named caretaker prime minister Wednesday instead of the candidate who had the tacit backing of the military.

State television’s announcement that King Bhumibol Adulyadej had appointed as prime minister Anand Panyarachun, who served in the job after a military coup last year, was a political surprise.

Anand may be able to hold the job for only a brief time because the Parliament on Wednesday adopted a constitutional amendment requiring that the prime minister be an elected member of Parliament. Anand did not run in the March 22 elections, and the amendment will become law when it appears in the government gazette in a few weeks.

“My priority is to organize new elections,” Anand told reporters after the announcement, according to the news agency Reuters. “My government will last four months.”

The complicated maneuvering came about because Thailand has been drifting virtually leaderless since Suchinda Kraprayoon, a former general who succeeded Anand as prime minister after the elections, resigned May 24 after accepting political responsibility for the deaths of more than 40 people in anti-government demonstrations the previous week.

The five pro-military parties that hold a majority in Parliament had nominated another former military man, Somboon Rahong, the leader of the Chart Thai Party, to replace Suchinda. Somboon even told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he had been appointed.

But opposition figures had promised to renew the anti-government demonstrations that racked the Thai capital before Suchinda’s resignation if Somboon or another military man were appointed prime minister. Bangkok has been gripped by rumors of a possible coup because of opposition demands that the military leadership be placed on trial for the deaths of the demonstrators, which they say number in the hundreds.

Parliament Speaker Arthit Urairat said he has been unable to persuade the parties in Parliament to agree on a new prime minister. He said he has nominated Anand, a former diplomat, because he is well regarded by all concerned.

“I and my party will support Anand,” Reuters reported Somboon as saying after the reversal.

Anand, now 59, was chosen to head the civilian government after a military coup in February, 1991, ousted Prime Minister Chatchai Choonhavan. Against many expectations, the British-educated Anand proved himself independent of the military and chose a government of widely respected technocrats rather than politicians.

Many Thai commentators described the yearlong Anand government as the best, and most corruption free, that Thailand has ever known. There was a letdown after the March elections when Suchinda named to the Cabinet old-style politicians, many of them accused of corruption.