Quotes of the Day

His mates back in newcastle, where he was born, and at Eton, where he was schooled, knew him as Mark, a soccer fanatic who later scored first-class honors at Oxford. Today, Thailand's urbane Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, says he dreamed of leading his Southeast Asian nation ever since he was a little boy, but he still seems more comfortable roaming the corridors of international diplomacy than engaging in the rough-and-tumble politics of his homeland. Just days ago, the 45-year-old economist headed to New York City to hobnob with world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly. In his inaugural speech to the international body on Sept. 26, Abhisit is expected to reference everything from sustainable development and foreign-investment incentives to the wisdom of Alfred Lord Tennyson. No doubt he will be warmly received.

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." Abhisit sees it differently. "Things continue to move forward," Abhisit told TIME recently, sitting in Government House, the country's seat of power that twice over the past year was besieged by yellow- and red-shirted protesters, forcing three successive administrations to abandon their offices. "We just have to make sure that only a small minority of people who are bent on violence or making chaos will not be able to cause trouble." Yet by Sept. 20, with dissent bubbling up across the nation, the mild-mannered Prime Minister was reduced to pleading with various political factions to display a little gentlemanliness: "We can express different opinions," he said in a televised address. "But we are all Thais. Please don't hurt each other."

Thailand's political deadlock is often posited as a battle between urban and rural, rich and poor. Certainly elements of these divisions infect the body politic. But the strife is also the result of a clash between two sets of political élites that have failed to find common ground. Pitched against Abhisit, the scion of an old Thai-Chinese family with connections to the country's royalty, is Thaksin, who is everything the current PM is not: a brash, populist, new-money billionaire who was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail on a conflict-of-interest conviction. Both camps have amassed vocal — and occasionally violent — supporters among a general populace that is ever more politically disillusioned. Results of a recently released nationwide poll by the nonprofit Asia Foundation found that less than one-third of Thais feel the country is moving in the right direction. In fact, the U.S. is so worried about the state of the nation that it recently committed funds through its Agency for International Development for democracy-building in Thailand, something it has not done for nearly 15 years.

As Prime Minister, it falls to Abhisit to try to bridge the country's political gulf and restore confidence in Thailand's wobbly democracy. Just by projecting a clean image, the PM may be able to woo more of the foreign investment Thailand needs to continue its economic recovery and to placate northeastern farmers who pine for the days of Thaksin's populist microfinancing initiatives. But first Abhisit will have to control the fractious six-party coalition that propelled him to power in the first place. A seemingly minor scuffle over who should be the next national police chief has riven the alliance. Abhisit's bid to avoid potential demonstration violence by invoking the country's Internal Security Act, sending thousands of soldiers onto the capital's streets on Sept. 19, drew barbs from some coalition members. The PM freely admits the difficulties the nation and his administration are facing — but it's not as if Thailand is teeming with potential leaders who could do a better job than Abhisit has. "We're feeling growing pains," he acknowledged to TIME. "We have to make sure that what to me are very fundamental pillars of democracy can be put into place without being seen as contravening the idea that democracy is about the rule of majority. We have to strike the right balance."

During his interview with TIME, Abhisit enumerated what his administration has been doing to find that equilibrium: more than $1 billion in development aid for the restive south, a hearts-and-minds campaign that contrasts with Thaksin's far more iron-fisted approach; enhanced relations with the U.S., China and Japan, the often contentious trio that are key trading partners for Thailand's export-led economy; and even a gracious acknowledgment that political foe Thaksin did acquire considerable popularity because of his "policy innovations" in rural areas.

But other unity-building efforts have fallen flat, like a project announced by the PM's office on Sept. 15 to induce all Thais to sing the national anthem every evening for a month and a half. The initiative faced ridicule in the national media, but it was presumably designed to placate the nationalist army faction to whom Abhisit's administration is beholden. Thailand also continues to court international criticism for the strict application of lèse-majesté laws that dissuade open discussion of the royal family and succession issues. Under Abhisit's tenure, the number of high-profile lèse-majesté cases working their way through Thai courts has increased. Shortly after Abhisit told TIME that "there has been an improvement [although] there may have been one or two cases which somehow went off the radar," a Thai political activist named Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment for insulting Thailand's King and Queen during a series of public speeches.

To be sure, it wasn't Abhisit who signed off on the sentencing. But royalists are among his greatest supporters, and publicly criticizing such punishments might be political suicide for Abhisit. A chap named Mark would have had a hard time explaining to his friends back in Oxford how all this fits into the modern Thai democracy he says he's trying to build.

• Hannah Beech / Bangkok
• Just months into the job, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is beset by myriad challenges. Can he turn good intentions into real action?