Thai Government Ally Pledges Support,

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May 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Thai government’s key coalition ally said it won’t abandon Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who was under pressure to call early elections because of violent street protests last month.

“Elections cost a lot of money and time,” Chavarat Charnvirakul, leader of the Bhum Jai Thai party, which has 32 lawmakers in the country’s 480-seat parliament, said in an interview in Bangkok. “We would like to continue our policy and work to the end of this period of the government.”

Hundreds of thousands of protesters loyal to ex-Premier Thaksin Shinawatra took to the streets last month to call for fresh elections, straining Abhisit’s seven-member coalition. Continued support from Bhum Jai Thai, made up of former Thaksin loyalists, suggest the government won’t unravel and trigger a fourth election in five years.

“In politics there is no real friend and there is no lifetime enemy,” Chavarat, the 72-year-old founder of Sino-Thai Engineering & Construction Pcl, Thailand’s second-largest contractor by sales, said in the May 26 interview. “I can work with any party.”

Bhum Jai Thai’s lawmakers elevated Abhisit to the premiership in December after they abandoned Thaksin, who has sought to regain power since being ousted in a 2006 coup. They mainly represent the country’s poor Northeast region, which has voted overwhelmingly for Thaksin-linked parties since 2001.

Chavarat, who serves as Abhisit’s interior minister, said he will target between 50 and 60 seats in future elections. The legislature is dominated by the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai party with 185 lawmakers, and Abhisit’s Democrat party with 172 seats. A fresh election must be called by December 2011, according to the constitution.

Rural Kingpin

Bhum Jai Thai is associated with five-time Cabinet minister Newin Chidchob, a 50-year-old rural kingpin who has changed parties seven times in a 23-year career. Newin’s importance was underscored in December when Abhisit presented him with a bouquet of imported roses and gave him a hug at a press briefing to announce the alliance with Bhum Jai Thai.

“Newin’s strategy is to try to hold the balance of power,” said Chris Baker, a Bangkok-based political analyst and author.

Once a top Thaksin aide, Newin was detained for 10 days after the coup and given a five-year political ban with 110 other lawmakers when the former premier’s party was disbanded.

Newin is “critical in numbers terms” to the government, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij, a member of Abhisit’s Democrat party, said in a May 7 interview. “If he were to decide tomorrow that he were to shift his alliance to the opposition, then we’d be in a situation where we might have to dissolve parliament.”

Reports that Newin is Bhum Jai Thai’s “owner and sole decision maker” are just speculation, Chavarat said. Newin serves as an adviser because the political ban bars him from taking an active role, he said.

Abhisit has said he will call an election when economic stimulus bills are passed, planned constitutional amendments are completed and Thailand fulfills its duties as chairman of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in December. He said in a May 20 interview that polls suggest his party would finish first if an election were held today.

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