Spartan95
Junior Member
I will attempt to share what I know of the situation in Thailand, which is primarily based on the news carried in my local (Singapore) news channels.
And no, China has got nothing to do with it. It is all politics internal to Thailand.
A broad time-line of event leading up to the current situation:
19/20 Sep 2006 : Thai Coup
Link to the time-line of the coup as reported by "The Nation", an english language daily published in Thailand:
Essentially, the military mounted a coup while the Prime Minister at that time, Thaksin, was attending an official conference in US.
Earlier in 2006, Thaksin's opponents, including the influential media tycoon Sondhi formed the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). PAD is also known as the "yellow shirts", and was formed in response to Thaksin's family's sale of Shin Corp to Singapore Temasek Holdings. The 73 billion baht transaction was controversial as it did not attract any government taxation at all. Hence, Sondhi formed PAD to call for Thaksin's resignation on the grounds of corruption, nepotism and eventually, undermining the Thai monarchy.
Link for the Shin corp sale:
Note: Sondhi was originally a Thaksin supporter. But they apparently fell out as Sondhi felt that Thaksin was no longer looking after his interests. The Thaksin family was also a competitor for Sondhi in Thailand's media industry.
Other factors cited for the coup include the need for the military to defend the monarchy from Thaksin. Thus, the military were wearing yellow armbands when they conducted the coup. The yellow armbands signify the royalty in Thailand (thus, the military was seen to be acting in the interests of the monarchy).
The PAD protests culminated in the coup in Sep 2006. Thereafter, Sondhi announced the dissolution of the PAD.
As Thaksin was in US when the coup happened, he has been in self-imposed exile ever since. He fears being arrested on arrival back in Thailand.
Sep 2006 to Dec 2007: Military Government in Thailand
Following the coup, the military became the caretaker government in Thailand led by retired General Surayud. During that time, they re-wrote the Thai constitution, which was put to a public referendum.
Despite criticisms that the new constitution was less democractic than the one it replaces, the new constitution was approved by the public referendum.
30 May 2007, the Constitutional Court of Thailand banned Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai political party (Thai Rak Thai means "Thai love Thai") on grounds of electoral fraud:
The members of Thai Rak Thai promptly formed the People's Power Party to contest the next election:
Dec 2007: General Election in Thailand
In this election, the PPP was the biggest winner, but it did not have the numbers to form the administration on its own. Thus a coalition government was formed:
This led to Samak (a Thaksin ally from PPP) being sworn in as PM.
29 Jan 2008 9 Sep 2008 : The Samak Administration in Thailand
With Samak (a Thaksin ally) in power as PM, the administration went about amending the military drafted constitution. This became a tricky issue as the PAD alleges that the amendments are meant to allow Thaksin to come back into Thai politics. as a result, the PAD started mobilising again in Mar 2008.
The initial PAD allegations didn't make much impact, until the Preah Vihear incident. Preah Vihear is an ancient temple on the Thai-Cambodia border that is disputed between the 2 countries. This is a convoluted issue, but the PAD alleges that Samak had compromised Thai sovereignty (sovereignty is a highly sensitive issue in Southeast Asia). As a result, the PAD movement gained strength, and their actions escalated.
Some notable incidents include the PAD siege of the Thai Government House. During this period of time, there were some small clashes between the PAD and Thaksin's supporters.
9 Sep 2008: Constitutional Court Ordered PM to Resign
PM Samak was ordered by the Thai Constitutional Court to resign onthe grounds that he violated the constitution by appearing in a cooking show on TV.
18 Sep to 2 Dec 2008 : The Somchai Administration
Following Samak's resignation, Somchai (Thaksin's brother-in-law) was nominated and sworn in as PM. This was clearly not acceptable to the PAD leaders.
Thus, the PAD escalated their actions, the most notable incident being the PAD occupation of the International Airport in Bangkok, effectively shutting down air travel in and out of Bangkok for about a week.
The fact that the military did not stop the protestors from occupying the airport, and their refusal to act against the PAD in the airport even when ordered by the PM made it quite clear that the PAD had the support of the military.
During this time (as well as during Samak's administration), the PAD leaders started calling for "New Politics", where a portion of the Parliament were to be appointed rather than elected. Their justification was that the rural poor were easily deceived by politicians. This was seen as a veiled attempt for the Bangkok elite to control the reins of power.
Meanwhile, the Thai Constitutional Court ruled that Somchai (the PM at that time) and his political party (PPP) be banned from politics on the grounds of electoral fraud:
With this ruling on 2 Dec 2008, the PAD felt that they had won. And they promptly left the airport that they were occupying.
With the PPP banned, some of the politicians joined its successor party, the Puea Thai Party (meaning for Thai), whilst others defected to the Democrat Party.
17 Dec 2008 onwards : Abhisit Administration
With PPP banned from politics, and the defection of some Members of Parliament to the Democrat Party, the stage was set for the Democrat Party to form the next government. Thus, Abhisit was sworn in as the PM on 17 Dec 2008.
However, the Thaksin supporters felt that Abhisit has no mandate to rule as his party was not elected to power (the Democrat Party came in 2nd in the 2007 elections). Thus, they pressed for a new general election. This group of people formed the United Front of Democracy Against Dictotarship (UDD), and as they wear red, they are also known as the "red shirts".
The UDD protests started peacefully enough, but were largely ignored by the administration. Thus, the UDD had to escalate their actions in order to press their demands. 1 notable incident from the escalation was the UDD storming the 4th East Asia Summit, resulting in its cancellation. (Footages of politicians being airlifted to safety by helicopters was all over the local news).
The administration's continued refusal to give in to UDD demands resulted in continued escalation until the present state of affairs.
Quote from the link above: "Thai society is deeply divided between the urban elite and rural poor, with most of the Red Shirts from the north and impoverished northeast."
My Own View
Esssentially, the UDD felt that their rights were looked after during the Thaksin Administration (and his allies). This was a novel thing for them, as previously, all power was centred in Bangkok and controlled by the elites there. When the Bangkok elites went about systemically dismantling Thaksin and his allies adminstration, and their refusal to hold new elections, fuelled the UDD's discontent. They felt that their rights have been trampled on and they also point out that the military did not crack down on the PAD in the past, but is now cracking down on the UDD as further proof of the elites suppressing the poor.
