Note: This has been adapted from ‘The Voter’s Uprising’ by Junya Yimpraset, 2009.
Since 1932 Thailand has had to face 21 military coups - 9 of them successful, 18 constitutions and 27 Prime Ministers. Only one elected Prime Minister has managed to complete the full 4-year term: the now convicted and self-exiled Thaksin Shinawatra. During the Cold War years Thailand’s military juntas concentrated on re-building and promoting the role of the monarchy - to legitimise the oppression of the rural poor. For the tens of millions of poor people in Thailand, it required the May 1992 uprising - that saw 48 citizens shot dead in the streets of Bangkok - to usher in the beginnings of democracy, and to establish, in 1997, a so-called People’s Constitution.
Thaksin Shinawatra a wealthy businessman, who had moved into politics in 1994, became Thailand’s first ever elected PM to complete a 4-year term in office (2001 - 2004). With a corporate style and approach to governance Thaksin was perceived as a threat to Thailand’s established, hegemonic order. This was exacerbated by his ‘rural-poor populist strategy’ which gave him his solid majority in the electorate. In 2001 he established Thailand’s first ever universal health-care scheme - the ‘30 Baht Scheme’. He oversaw the implementation of a ‘0ne Million Baht Village Fund’, a scheme that provided every village in Thailand with a one million cash bonus to be administered at will. He also attempted to promote village productivity and assisted farmers in managing their debt burden; and introduced cheap loan programmes for low-income people to buy houses. However, Thaksin was an enthusiastic promoter of neoliberal globalisation and negotiated Free Trade Agreements without popular consultation. Moreover, his War on Drugs’ saw 2 500 people lose their lives.
Thaksin Shinawatra a wealthy businessman, who had moved into politics in 1994, became Thailand’s first ever elected PM to complete a 4-year term in office (2001 - 2004). With a corporate style and approach to governance Thaksin was perceived as a threat to Thailand’s established, hegemonic order. This was exacerbated by his ‘rural-poor populist strategy’ which gave him his solid majority in the electorate. In 2001 he established Thailand’s first ever universal health-care scheme - the ‘30 Baht Scheme’. He oversaw the implementation of a ‘0ne Million Baht Village Fund’, a scheme that provided every village in Thailand with a one million cash bonus to be administered at will. He also attempted to promote village productivity and assisted farmers in managing their debt burden; and introduced cheap loan programmes for low-income people to buy houses. However, Thaksin was an enthusiastic promoter of neoliberal globalisation and negotiated Free Trade Agreements without popular consultation. Moreover, his War on Drugs’ saw 2 500 people lose their lives.
In February 2005 Thaksin won a landslide victory with 62% of the vote (19 million votes). In February 2006, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), was founded by the Bangkok media tycoon Sonthi Limthongkul. Allied with members of the Democrat Party, and dressed in yellow, PAD consisted of a wide assortment of NGOs, celebrities, intellectuals and civil servants - predominantly middle-class Bangkokians. PAD’s vision of a ‘New Politics’ included replacing most elected politicians with appointed “good people”.
A military coup was staged for September 2006 - when Thaksin was in New York, attending a meeting of the UN General Assembly. The King approved the military junta that replaced Thaksin’s government and thus also the restoration of Thailand’s customary feudal order.
Following the coup the Junta’s annulled the People’s Constitution of 1997, dissolved Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT), and increased the military budget by 33%. General Surayud became Thailand’s 24th Prime Minister in October 2006 and scheduled a General Election for December 2007. Of the 377 elected Members of Parliament in the TRT Party (out of 480 in the Thai Parliament), 111 of the leading MPs were banned from politics for 5 years. Those not banned stood for re-election as the People Power Party (PPP).
The election of December 2007 saw the PPP taking 49% of the vote (14 million). The Democrat Party managed 34%. The PPP set up government under Samak Suntornvej. In response, in May 2008. yellow-clad PAD demonstrators laid siege to Government House. After 4 months of siege, on August 26 they occupied Government House and attacked National Broadcasting TV and the Ministry of Finance. In response, Samak gave the Premiership to Thaksin’s brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat. The PAD increased its attacks, assaulting several government offices; waging street battaes with the police in Bangkok, and shutting down Bankok’s international airport.
On 2 December the Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the PPP and also the two other main parties of Somchai’s governing coalition. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of the Democrat Party, and active PAD supporter, became Prime Minister on 15 December, 2008.
In response the new United Front for Democratic against Dictatorship (UDD) – dressed in red shirts - was formed to protest the corruption of Thailand’s democracy, and called for mass mobilizations against the unelected government. On 26 March 2009 the red shirts began to assemble outside Government House. By 8 April half a million protestors, representing a wide spectrum of grass-root civil organizations, were holding peaceful assemblies in Bangkok and about 40 of Thailand’s 77 provincial capitals. Later that month 250 000 red shirts were mobilised in the capital, the largest number of protesters ever seen on the streets of Bangkok.
The UDD organised protests against , and forced the cancellation of, the ASEAN Summit (10 - 13 April) in Pattaya. In response, on April 11, Abhisit declared a state-of-emergency in and around Bangkok, and issued orders for demonstrators to be cleared from outside Government House within 4 days, and for all UDD communication channels to be cut, especially their on-line satellite TV, the so-called Democracy Station, ‘D-station’ or DTV, that had been set-up in January (2009) to counter the PAD’s Asia Satellite TV (ASTV).
On April 12 the Army attacked with tear gas and live ammunition, the ThaiCom building in north Bangkok where several hundred demonstrators had gathered to defend the ‘D-station’ transmission. The red-shirts set-up roadblocks and attempted to prevent the military advancing on Government House. The UDD leaders were arrested and charged, while the PAD leaders that had vandalised Government House and occupied the international airport now participate in the Abhisit ‘government’. Welcome to the land of smiles.
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