With a big turnout at a rally of his supporters and another landslide by-election win for his party at the weekend, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has proved he is still a force in Thai politics, even in exile.
More than 20,000 “red shirt” demonstrators braved the rain in Bangkok to demand new elections in the biggest pro-Thaksin rally since April, when the army was called in to break up violent street protests.
And a second successive victory for the Thaksin-backed Puea Thai party in a pivotal by-election on Sunday indicates he is still popular among the rural masses despite Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s claim that he is a spent political force.
PHOTO: AP
Analysts say the strengthening of Thaksin’s parliamentary and extra-parliamentary movements could plunge Thailand into deeper political turmoil, stifling economic recovery efforts and heightening the risk of more civil unrest.
“As long as Thaksin is a force, his supporters will use all means to contest this government,” said Somjai Phagaphasvivat, a political science professor at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.
“The opposition to Thaksin will remain, with the prospect of more confrontation and violence and no chance of compromise or national reconciliation,” he said.
The “red shirts” say Abhisit is an illegitimate stooge who relied on army-orchestrated parliamentary defections to give his Democrats a slender majority after the courts dissolved the pro-Thaksin People’s Power Party in December.
After weeks of protests, Thaksin’s supporters caused huge embarrassment for Abhisit on April 11 when they breached military lines to force the cancellation of an Asian summit in Pattaya, when half of the leaders had to be evacuated by helicopter.
Bangkok street clashes two days later plunged Thailand deeper into chaos and pictures aired across the world of burning buses, hijacked petrol tankers and troops firing rifles did nothing to restore investors’ confidence or attract tourists back.
The Oxford-educated Abhisit, whose Democrats head a fragile six-party coalition, has said he will not call an election until the export-driven economy has recovered and a process of constitutional reform is complete.
The Finance Ministry forecast last week that the economy would shrink between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent this year.
Analysts say Thaksin’s aim is to harass and discredit Abhisit in parliament and on the streets before the public sees any benefit from the government’s 1.43 trillion baht (US$42 billion) economic stimulus packages.
The “red shirts” want an early election because the Puea Thai party stands a good chance of winning a house majority.
If successful, Puea Thai would be expected to pursue legislative changes that would allow Thaksin, sentenced in absentia in October to two years in prison for graft, to return from exile in Dubai and launch a political comeback.
“The longer Abhisit remains in power, the harder it will be for Puea Thai to win votes in the next election,” said Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, a political scientist from the National Institute of Development Administration.
“That means there will be more pressure on Abhisit, making it harder for him to fix the economy. Thaksin will do whatever it takes to accelerate the timing of a new election,” he said.
However, the “red shirts” grouped in the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship have promised not to disrupt this month’s Asian summit in Phuket.
To ensure his government’s survival, analysts say Abhisit must bring unity to his coalition after squabbles over a controversial bus leasing scheme and an attempt by the commerce ministry to sell rice from state stockpiles, which was blocked by the prime minister.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two