Interesting 'Frank' Shinawatra Related 'Economist' Article

The Oracle

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<a class="postlink" href="http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12708150" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.economist.com/world/asia/dis ... d=12708150</a>

Thailand

Desperate days
Nov 27th 2008 | BANGKOK
From The Economist print edition

The anti-government mob goes all-out to cause chaos


A LAST, desperate attempt by Thailand’s royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) to cause chaos and force the army to seize power looked dangerously close to succeeding as we went to press on November 27th. The prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, pleaded with soldiers to stay in their barracks and a spokesman for the ruling party said that if they did not, supporters should block tanks with their cars. Two days earlier the PAD’s yellow-shirted supporters had seized Bangkok’s main international airport, cutting all flights. The next day the army chief, General Anupong Paochinda, had urged the government to call fresh elections and the PAD to cease its protests. But both sides spurned his call, increasing the chances of army intervention.

AP

No happy landings
The general was forced to speak out by the growing violence on the capital’s streets. On November 25th PAD “guards” had shot at government supporters on a Bangkok motorway. On the morning of the 26th explosions were heard around both the main airport, Suvarnabhumi, and the capital’s second airport (where the government has had its temporary offices since the PAD’s seizure of Government House in August). Later, police said government supporters had shot an anti-government activist in Chiang Mai, in the north.

The PAD promised to summon a crowd of over 100,000 this week for its “final battle” to topple the government, which is allied to Mr Somchai’s brother-in-law, Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed in the coup of 2006. But only a fraction of that number turned out. The PAD’s increasingly thuggish tactics have lost it much of the support it had from middle-class Bangkokians.

However, despite its dwindling support, the PAD’s remaining crowds, a few tens of thousands at most, have been left unchecked to create havoc. The government and the police, having suffered fierce criticism from pro-PAD newspapers after deadly clashes in October, have stood back, hoping that the protesters’ excesses would lose them support. The army has so far declined to stage a coup, as the PAD wants. But it has also refused to help the police tackle the protesters, who claim support from Queen Sirikit.

It is now three years since the PAD’s founder, Sondhi Limthongkul, began holding rallies to protest at corruption and abuses of power by Mr Thaksin. The 2006 coup seemed to grant the PAD its wish. His Thai Rak Thai party, whose policies of cheap health care and microcredit had won strong support from rural voters, was subsequently dissolved. But last December, after 15 months of dismal army-backed rule, voters returned to power a coalition led by Mr Thaksin’s new People’s Power Party (PPP), prompting the PAD to resume its protests.

The Thai crisis is complex and the motives of its actors are not always clear. But it has increasingly looked like a fight to the death by the country’s traditional, royalist elite against a threat to its dominance from an authoritarian but highly popular leader from outside that Bangkok-based clique. The PAD claims that Mr Thaksin is plotting to overthrow the revered King Bhumibol and install a republic. This is probably untrue. But the businessman-turned-politician was becoming a rival to the king for the public’s affections. The PAD, arguing that the masses are too “uneducated” to choose sensible leaders and resist vote-buying, wants to restore the semi-democracy of the 1980s, increasing the influence of the army, palace and royalist bureaucracy and diluting the popular vote.

Mr Thaksin, despite recently having been convicted in absentia for corruption, is not giving up yet. He recently staged a rally of around 70,000 of his red-shirted supporters at a sports stadium, to address them by telephone. The exiled ex-leader is promising another big gathering in December. His main message seems to be: I am still popular and still here. Some diehard supporters have sent a tougher message, threatening to bomb the PAD’s rallies. Several PAD supporters have been killed or maimed in explosions this month. However, it is unclear which of these were caused by the group’s foes and which by its own bombs.

The government, abandoning Bangkok to gather in Chiang Mai, Mr Thaksin’s home turf, insists it will not budge. Busy dodging bands of marauding protesters, its ministers have been doing precious little governing, at a time when Thailand’s exports are crumbling, its vital tourist trade faces collapse and unemployment seems likely to soar. The courts may soon dissolve the PPP for alleged vote-buying in last December’s election. But Mr Thaksin already has a third party, Puea Thai, to take its place, with a cousin, Chaisit Shinawatra, reportedly lined up to lead it. The Thaksinites seem likely to win a fair election.

More unpredictable than ever, Thai politics is in a dangerous phase. Even if there is not a “hard” coup, some sort of softer military-judicial coup is possible—perhaps like the state of emergency imposed last year in Bangladesh—putting a civilian front on a government backed by the army and palace. But if this happens, Mr Thaksin’s increasingly angry redshirts threaten to take the place of the royalist yellow-shirts, hitting the streets to bring down the new government. Three years on, it is hard to foresee a happy ending to Thailand’s political strife, just a variety of sad ones.

I've noticed that 'The Economist' always seem more balanced in their reports on the Thai political situation than most of the British mainland newspapers.
 
Independent on Sunday had a very good and balanced piece on Thai politics and the massive support still behind Shinawatra.
 
Matty said:
I couldn't care less about Thai politics. However a true democracy must be one vote one person, you can't exempt people from voting because you think they're "too thick". If we could then Liverpool would have a voting population of 3.
one law for the 'elite' classes and one for the poor, eh?
doesn't bode too well for the country's future stability.
 

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