Thailand's upper house grilled Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej in a largely symbolic censure debate on Monday as thousands of street protesters blockaded his office for a fourth day, demanding his government quit. The 73-year-old Samak, who was elected in December, delivered a wide-ranging defence of his government after a barrage of criticism from Senate opposition members.
"I am not that insane to quit," the tough-talking right wing firebrand said in a 30-minute rebuttal. "In the past four months, I have worked every day. We have lots of work to do," he said. "Ministers attend cabinet meetings every Tuesday." Neither the Senate debate nor Tuesday's opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion in the lower house of parliament is likely to cause the five-month-old coalition major problems given its overwhelming majority.
Instead, Samak appears to be using them to counter the street campaign by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the motley group of businessmen, academics and royalists whose 2005 campaign against Thaksin Shinawatra led ultimately to his removal in a 2006 coup. "They will use their victory against the no-confidence motion to say a majority of MPs still have confidence in the government, and tell the street protesters to go home," said Ong-Ard Klampaiboon, a spokesman for the opposition Democrats.
The Democrats won 164 seats in parliament in December's election, the first since the coup, compared to 316 for Samak's People Power Party and its five coalition partners. The second largest coalition party, Chart Thai, denied media speculation it might depart Samak's People Power Party for a Democrat-led government. "That's impossible," party leader Banharn Silpa-archa said when pressed by a reporter.
The political tension has hurt the stock market, which has dropped more than 13 percent since the street rallies began a month ago, and Finance Minister Surapong Suebwonglee said it might cause the economy to miss his target of 6 percent growth this year.

"In early May we were still positive, but we are now facing both political and oil issues which need to be resolved quickly," he told reporters, referring to soaring oil prices which have pushed inflation to a near decade high. PAD leaders say they will only call off the protests after the resignation of the government, which they say is an illegitimate proxy for Thaksin. Ong-Ard said Samak would eventually have to call a snap election if farmers struggling with the rising costs of fuel and falling agricultural prices joined the PAD protests.
"The bailouts the farmers are getting now are just pain-killers. Ultimately, Samak will have to dissolve parliament and call a snap election," he said. Given that Thailand has had three elections and a referendum since 2005, most politicians are loathe to have another as they cannot afford to finance any campaigns, analysts say.