Daniel Pedersen

So who are the republicans waiting in the wings?

Don Talenywun

May 25, 2010

Everyone denied responsibility for the red and white stickers plastered around Bangkok during the melee these past weeks.

Spooked Bangkok residents first spotted the garish stickers well before the killing started in central Bangkok.

The stickers carried the message: “New Thai State under President Thaksin Shinawatra.”

Thaksin immediately denied he had anything to do with the stickers or the message they bore, and the red shirts said they didn’t know where they had come from.

But the stickers were there, on walls, trumpeting the proposition of Thailand becoming a republic with Thaksin as head of state, or president.

The red shirt campaign has been painted as Thailand’s have-nots challenging the rich elite.

Many protestors may well have mustered to fight for democracy and the chance of a fairer go, embracing the leaders’ propaganda, but the appearance of the stickers would suggest a broader campaign, perhaps still in its infancy, to re-write Thailand’s constitution.

The stickers were placed to seed a thought, perhaps gauge public opinion.

It is both alleged and denied that Thaksin and a group of peers, many of whom were to become founding members of the now-disbarred Thai Rak Thai (Thai Love Thai) Party, met in Finland in 1999 to hatch a plan to instrument major changes to how Thailand is governed.

They are said to have laid down plans to change Thailand forever, off-loading its form of constitutional democracy.

The meeting would constitute prima facie treason on behalf of all those who attended.

Should such a bid to transform Thailand’s constitutional status to that of a republic succeed, the revered Royal family’s assets, its holding companies and their largely tax-free existence could face a shakedown.

The Crown Property Bureau controls a formidable portfolio of properties that help to make the King Thailand’s richest man.

The CPB owns land that includes some of Bangkok’s best real estate.

Its tenants include Siam Paragon, Central World and MBK.

Central World was coincidentally one of the buildings destroyed by arsonists as the red shirt protestors abandoned their central Bangkok compound on Wednesday, May 19.

Since 1932, when Thailand transformed from an absolute monarchy to the constitutional democracy it is today, the former Kingdom of Siam can only have been considered a tin-pot democracy at best, a flat-out military dictatorship at worst.

With eight military coups since 1932 and another three attempted coups thrown in, repeated collapse of government and an array of snap elections, Thai democracy has proven itself dynamic if nothing else.

Yet Thailand’s monarchy, while officially removed from decision-making processes, is still the sounding board of coup-makers and governments in crisis alike.

Unconditionally adored by the masses, King Rama IX is the world’s longest-serving,living monarch.

But the same cannot be said of his son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, whose reputation as a ladies’ man and a bit of a wheeler-dealer precedes him.

It was suggestions of burgeoning business links between the Crown Prince and then Prime Minister Thaksin in a short article in the Far Eastern Economic Review in 2002 that led to two journalists’ visas being suspended.

Shawn Crispin and Rodney Tasker were told to prepare for deportation in late February 2002.

On the government’s behalf, the episode appeared to be a poorly-executed attempt to subdue foreign correspondents residing in Thailand.

They were threatened with charges of lese majeste and described as a threat to national security.

This uncharacteristic lack of finesse on the Thais’ behalf appeared to be a blatant and apparently quite-hurried attempt to quash the matter, shoot the messenger and declare the subject of the article illegal in the Kingdom.

And the Thai authorities threatened two correspondents from a prestigious magazine with deportation to show they meant business.

ENDS

STRATFOR

May 19, 2010

In a success for Thailand’s armed forces, the military offensive against Red Shirt protesters in central Bangkok ended May 19.

The opposition Red Shirts now find themselves in a weakened position, but even so, they are not likely to fade away completely.

With the end of the offensive, the ruling Democrat Party now has bought itself some time to deal with the remaining challenges it faces ahead of elections that must be called no later than December 2011.

For its part, the Thai army has emerged in a much stronger position.

Analysis

Thai troops ended their offensive in downtown Bangkok at the main rally site of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship or “Red Shirt” protesters May 19. At 1pm local time, Red Shirt leaders in police custody asked their followers to go home. The operation concluded at 2 pm local time, with a total of about five dead and 50 wounded for the day.

Bangkok and 23 provinces in the north and northeast will be under curfew all night as police and the military attempt to put out fires, prevent follow-on attacks and stop sporadic small riots and any lingering protesters.

Most of the 3,000 or so protesters who remained until the very end will be taken to a stadium, loaded on buses and sent back to those north and northeastern provinces from where most of them came.

The army appears to have executed the final operation successfully. Some had feared the operation might last all of May 19 and even push into the next day. And the death toll was remarkably small compared to the nearly 40 who died in fighting from May 13-17 and the 26 or so who died in April 10 clashes.

That said, the bloodshed in recent months has exceeded that of periods of comparable unrest in the country in 1976 and 1992.

The low body count on May 19 is partially a result of the army’s ability to avoid pushing forces directly into the main protest; instead, it managed to shut down the protest by encircling it.

Only limited Red Shirt protests or violence occurred outside of Bangkok on May 19. In one instance of violence, some 5,000 protesters stormed the town hall in Udon Thani in reaction to the crackdown and calls for a general uprising. The crowd threatened to set fire to the building with car tires and fuel.

Elsewhere, 1,000 protesters broke through the main gate of the town hall in Khon Kaen. Neither of these events escalated into major conflict with security, however.

both locations are part of the Red Shirt movement’s northeastern support base, persistent attacks against public buildings and incidents of arson bear close scrutiny, as they might erupt into a greater conflagration.

The Red Shirt movement is now in very bad shape. Four of its top leaders were arrested May 19, and many of their deputies are also likely now (or soon will be) in custody. The arrestees, as well as a handful of powerful people behind the scenes, face vigorous prosecution and could face terrorism charges, which can carry capital punishment.

Other Red Shirts fled the scene before the final showdown, while military snipers assassinated the most radical Red Shirt, Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, aka Seh Daeng, when the final anti-protest operation began.

More than 100 bank accounts have been frozen to prevent the flow of funds from exiled politicians to their Red Shirt proxies.

Parties affected by these moves go beyond Thaksin Shinawatra, the exiled former prime minister and inspiration behind the Red Shirts, who saw a large chunk of his remaining funds in Thai banks seized in late February (one proximate cause of the mass protests).

Nevertheless, the Red Shirt movement will eventually regroup, though perhaps under a different banner.

The movement is grounded in the wide disparity of wealth, power and status between Thailand’s northern and northeastern provinces and Bangkok.

percent of Thailand’s nearly 70 million population lives in Bangkok, while about one-third lives in the northeast.

movement thus will continue to enjoy an advantage in numbers and voters and will continue to clamor for a more representative government. Such political change would threaten the interests of members of the royal family and bureaucratic and military elites in Bangkok. The contest will continue to play out as elite factions opposed to the status quo harness the popular movement for their own gain.

The Red Shirts’ push to force new elections, which began in mid-March, has failed. Because the Reds did not agree with an earlier proposal to end protests in exchange for elections in November, the ruling Democrat Party does not need to call elections until December 2011.

This gives the ruling party time to work on keeping its coalition together, dismantle the Red Shirt movement, pursue its political enemies, consolidate power, finalize its budget with the necessary perks for its allies and defend itself against the acrimonious aftermath in parliament and against public charges of mishandling the affair — all of which it must accomplish if it is to survive.

One example of the hurdles it faces is the case under consideration by the Electoral Commission over whether to dissolve the Democrat Party due to corruption. If it loses the case, the party would have to re-form under a different name to stay in power.

For its part, the Thai army has greatly strengthened its position.

First, it has shut down the protests forcefully in the past week, reclaiming some of the prestige it lost after a bungled attempt to end protests April 10.

More important, with its preferred civilian leaders in place, the army can expect a smooth transition of leadership in October, when Gen. Prayuth Chan Ocha is expected to succeed current army chief Gen. Anupong Paochinda. Prayuth is seen as a staunch royalist and the head of the leading military faction, as opposed to the military faction sympathetic to the Red Shirts and to Thaksin.

Throughout the recent mayhem, and especially since mid-April, the military has taken a leading role in overseeing the security response to the protests — in great part accounting for the high levels of bloodshed.

This informal power will not be as conspicuous now that the protests have concluded, but the military is not eager to cede any influence it has gained.

In general, its influence in the Thai establishment is strengthening as other important institutions — namely the monarchy and Privy Council — are undergoing generational transitions.

To deflect any criticism that could undermine its newly strengthened position, the army can point to civilian leaders’ handling of the crisis.

Ultimately the conclusion of the latest bout of mass protests has reaffirmed the cycle of instability that is inseparable from Thailand’s geographical, social, political and economic conditions.

This cycle is accelerating and intensifying as King Bhumibol Adulyadej nears the end of his life and a half-century long reign, creating deep uncertainty and competition among powerful interests and institutions.

Thailand’s cyclical political troubles, and its frequent periods of rising military control, have not prevented it from achieving economic success over the past half century, and its deeply divided political forces have managed to find accommodation within its well-established governmental structures before.

But the death of the king threatens to weaken the country’s ideological cohesion in a way that has not happened since 1946, when his reign began, and therefore the trend toward greater political turbulence is set to increase over the coming years, at least until the transition takes place and a new power arrangement emerges.

This report is republished with the permission of STRATFOR: www.STRATFOR.com.

ENDS