Man in the Middle: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva

Yet even as the international community fetes the fresh-faced Prime Minister, Abhisit is being accused back home of an increasing disconnect with Thais living outside the air-conditioned comfort of Bangkok. Despite a brightening economic outlook that his technocrat-filled administration is quick to take credit for, there's no doubt Thailand is fraying at the edges. On Sept. 19, two days before the PM jetted off to the U.N., more than 20,000 antigovernment demonstrators bedecked in their signature red shirts flooded the Thai capital from rural areas to mark the third anniversary of a military coup against their spiritual leader, exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The same day, nationalist yellow-clad protesters, who had helped pave Abhisit's path to power, clashed violently with villagers near the Cambodian border, where a border dispute simmers near an ancient temple complex. In the country's largely Muslim south, a campaign of separatist violence claimed more than a dozen victims in September; this year's death toll in the restive region has already reached around 350 and, if the pace of killings continues, the 2009 count will top last year's figure. Little wonder, then, that the country's revered 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej — whose hospitalization on Sept. 19 for fever and fatigue only added to Thailand's overall sense of unease — cautioned in August that if national unity is not restored, the kingdom could "collapse."

Abhisit is not to blame for the deep national divides he inherited when he took office nine months ago. During his short tenure, he has diligently applied himself to the slow rebuilding of democratic institutions that have been eroded by nearly four years of political turbulence. But so far good intentions have not yielded many concrete results. "Abhisit is the first elected Prime Minister who said he would put human rights and justice at the forefront of his administration in order to promote national unity," says Sunai Phasuk, Thailand researcher for Human Rights Watch. "But he lacks the power to mobilize his coalition government to translate [that] into real action."

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