BANGKOK -- As Thailand goes to the polls today, the long shadow of an earlier general election looms over the ballot boxes: In April 1992, a fresh, military-drafted constitution enabled then army chief Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon to become prime minister without having to face voters.
Suchinda's short-lived, 50-minister cabinet was the largest in Thai history. It brimmed with the kind of corrupt, scheming politicians that his coup in February 1991 was meant to remove.
