Thailand’s opposition party gains strength

Thailand’s main opposition party formally requested an emergency parliament session today to prove its majority and form the next government.

This Southeast Asian nation has been gripped by political chaos for three months, with protesters seizing the prime minister’s office and overrunning the capital’s two airports for about a week in a bid to topple the government, accusing it of being a proxy of fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The country’s No. 2 party until a week ago, the Democrat Party gains its newfound strength from defections by onetime allies of Thaksin after the collapse of the ruling coalition last week.

A Thaksin ally said officials had been pressured by the military, but Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, 44, denied that.

The government lost power after the Constitutional Court disbanded Thaksin’s People’s Power Party and two partners in the ruling coalition after finding them guilty of electoral fraud.

The People’s Power Party was reborn as the For Thais party, but many of its coalition partners joined a Democrat Party-led coalition that claims the support of 260 lawmakers.