Amid all the attention on Thailand's new elected government, it is worth sparing a thought for the country's troubled deep south. The prospect of a new ruling coalition in Bangkok dominated by forces loyal to ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra raises many issues after 16 months of controversial military rule.
The situation in the three southernmost provinces - home to a Muslim majority in an otherwise Buddhist nation - deserves to be a priority among them. In recent weeks, however, it has barely surfaced in public debate.
The past 12 months marked another bloody year in the south, with more than 1,000 people killed and 1,800 injured in a steady campaign of violence - bombings, shootings and arson - targeting ordinary Buddhists and Muslims linked to government or businesses. Teachers have been attacked on their way home from school and rubber-tappers beheaded as they make their pre-dawn plantation rounds.
The year started with the unprecedented attacks at Lunar New Year on an ethnic Chinese minority, which has been part of the southern fabric for centuries. Reflecting on the senselessness of the violence that saw people shot in their homes and major businesses torched, many spoke with pride at the way the Chinese had traditionally rubbed shoulders with the Muslim community. Authorities unearthed sticks of dynamite from a southern mosque this week, sparking fresh fears of looming New Year attacks.
The steady drum beat of violence may not make the big headlines, but it doesn't lessen the cost or the pain being felt across the Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces.
Recent visitors describe a continuing state of siege. Small towns are shut by late afternoon. While rural Thais revel in the freedom of the streets and fields at dusk, in the south people sit at home behind tightly shut grilles. Families, despite ties to the region going back generations, are fleeing. Education authorities are struggling to recruit teachers.