May 7, 2009
BANGKOK - Once-coherent forces are fragmenting in Thailand, promising to complicate standing political alliances while disintegrating others. As Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva strikes new conciliatory poses - including possible constitutional reforms and an amnesty for more than 100 banned politicians - the emerging realignment could ignite potent new sources of instability and foil his government's strategy to shore up itsdemocratic mandate at new polls next year.
Officials and analysts are still weighing the significance of last month's violent anti-government street protests and the military'scrackdown, which pitted forces aligned to exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra against Abhisit's coalition government and its presumed backers in the military, bureaucracy
and royal Privy Council. Those clashes and the subsequent assassination attempt of an anti-Thaksin protest leader have opened new political fissures that have the potential to spark more upheaval and violence.
The main wildcard, the red-shirted United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) protest group, has fractured at the top after last month's crackdown and temporary detainment of its main leaders, according to a second-line UDD leader. Different co-leaders have in recent weeks forwarded divergent strategies for future resistance, with some promoting new mass protests while others have advocated a more radical move towards armed struggle.
Diplomats familiar with the situation say that UDD co-leader Veera Musikapong was instrumental in steering the situation away from a violent crescendo on April 13 when he agreed to disperse the remaining 3,000 protestors after the military had encircled the UDD's main protest site at
Government House in Bangkok. The same diplomats claim that certain UDD protesters on the site's perimeter were that day armed with homemade explosive devices, or ping pong bombs, which if launched could have easily escalated the situation towards retaliatory violence.
While UDD co-leaders Veera, Jatuporn Prompan, Weng Tojirakarn and Nattawut Saikuae have all called for new peaceful protests, analysts suggest that Thaksin is now looking for a new UDD leadership.
Thaksin's close aides and former Communist Party of Thailand members Prommin Lertsuridej and Phumtham Wechayachai were floated in recent media reports as possible candidates.
If so, the UDD would appear to be splitting into two distinct groups, with those favoring peaceful protests less aligned to Thaksin and those calling for armed struggle more clearly in the exiled former premier's inner circle.
One diplomat suggests that while the UDD lost the battle, by mobilizing 100,000 protesters on April 8 it successfully advanced a rallying call against entrenched inequality and injustice in Thai society.
The question, he suggests, will be whether the protest movement can break away from Thaksin's funds and symbolism and become a positive force for political reform, or instead intensify its destabilizing course of disruption and violence aimed solely at toppling Abhisit's government and restoring Thaksin's power.
Exiled motivations
Thaksin's lurch towards brinksmanship was at least partially motivated by the breakdown in secret negotiations that had been mediated from behind the scenes by a European interlocutor.
Those talks, which included elements of the military and monarchy, according to a Thaksin ally familiar with the situation, aimed to return Thaksin's US$2.2 billion in frozen funds in exchange for a vow he would not re-enter politics.
In an apparent bid to re-establish his diminished negotiating leverage, he has publicly accused certain privy councilors of orchestrating the 2006 coup and recently alleged in an interview with the Financial Times that King Bhumibol Adulyadej had foreknowledge of the putsch.
Before that, Thaksin is also known to have lost touch with Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, reaffirming the notion that neither is the monarchy a static institution with its relationships.
According to diplomats and a well-placed palace source, Thaksin had on several occasions after returning from exile in 2008 met with Vajiralongkorn in Bangkok via his trusted associate, Sino Thai Engineering and Construction Company chairman Anutin Charnvirakul.
The two had also met on at least two separate occasions when Thaksin was in exile in London after the 2006 coup and Vajiralongkorn spent nine months of calendar 2007 in Europe.
It was lost on few seasoned observers that the UDD's April 12 assault on Prime Minister's Office secretary general Nipon Prompan's car at the Ministry of Interior had particular symbolic value because of the senior bureaucrat's known close ties to Vajiralongkorn, including formative years together at a European boarding school.
Some diplomats have interpreted that assault and the UDD's public criticisms of top privy councilors as a strong signal that Thaksin and his allies could complicate the impending royal succession, where Vajiralongkorn is the heir apparent to the throne.
At the same time, many believe Thaksin may have overstepped the mark by mentioning the widely revered 81-year-old Bhumibol in recent political remarks to the foreign media.
Meanwhile, the April 17 assassination attempt against media mogul and People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protest group leader Sondhi Limthongkul could result in a more dramatic break of previously presumed aligned political forces.
Sondhi has publicly accused military officials with links to Thaksin of masterminding the failed attack, which was launched by assault rifle-toting assassins.
Sondhi told this correspondent while in hospital that he believed army commander General Anupong Paochinda, army chief of staff General Prayuth Chan-ocha and Defense Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan were bent on seizing political power from Abhisit.
Anupong has denied any foreknowledge or involvement in the plot on Sondhi, though he has acknowledged that bullet shells found at the crime scene were Thai army issue.
Sondhi has criticized the same military officials in recent press interviews and in an apparent shift suggested that the PAD's "new politics" reform agenda is in some ways similar to the political change advocated by the UDD.
PAD street protests paved the way for the 2006 military coup that ousted Thaksin's government and the movement was notably dormant during the military appointed administration that ruled in 2006 and 2007.
A second incarnation of the PAD last year paralyzed the workings of two Thaksin-aligned governments, which eventually fell through controversial court decisions, including a December 2 ruling that disbanded the then ruling People's Power Party.
Sondhi cloaked his yellow-shirted protest movement in royal symbolism and first drew crowds in late 2005 by accusing then prime minister Thaksin of disloyalty to the Thai crown - charges Thaksin has denied.
Loyal royals
By taking hard aim at Anupong and Prayuth, both established royalists who served in Queen Sirikit's Royal Guard Infantry Regiment, diplomats and analysts wonder whether Sondhi will continue to mobilize defense-of-the-monarchy themes at any future protests, including ones that potentially target top military officials or royal advisors.
Sondhi's Thai language daily newspaper openly supported the candidacy of former 3rd army division commander General Saprang Kalayanamitr over Anupong in the run-up to the 2007 military reshuffle that eventually elevated Anupong to the army'stop spot.
Anupong has since consolidated his power over important command positions, but has faced criticism from certain hardline military elements, and echoed by Sondhi, that he has failed to effectively purge Thaksin's lingering influence.
Aisa Time
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