BANGKOK, THAILAND - THAI election authorities said on Friday they will ask a court to disband two partners in Thailand's coalition government after an investigation concluded they had bought votes in December polls.

Election Commission spokesman Ruengroj Chomsueb said the panel has recommended the disbanding of the Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya parties, on charges of vote buying by top executives.

Prosecutors now have 30 days to decide whether to uphold the commission's findings. If they agree, the case would then go to the Constitutional Court, which would consider whether to accept the charges.

The two parties are key partners in a coalition government led by Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's People Power Party (PPP).

But even if the coalition lost the 45 seats the parties hold, the remaining partners would still hold a comfortable majority, with 271 of the 480 seats in parliament.

However, Mr Samak has launched a drive to amend the constitution and strip the courts of the power to disband political parties. He argues that the threat of party dissolution destabilises the government.

The constitution was drafted by a military-backed panel following a 2006 coup against then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and was approved in a referendum in August.

Mr Samak's drive to amend the basic law has sparked intense controversy, with critics saying he wants to prevent his own PPP from being disbanded.

The party's deputy leader, Yongyut Tiapairat, also faces vote-buying accusations that could eventually lead the Election Commission seeking the PPP's dissolution as well.

The PPP is made up of allies of Thaksin, who remains an enormously divisive figure, adored in the Thailand's rural heartland but despised by much of the Bangkok elite. -- AFP