Political Crisis in Thailand

In 2006 Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was accused of conflicts of interest, the most glaring example of which was the Shinawatra family’s sale of their Shin Corporation stock to the Singaporean government for a tax free sum of 73 billion baht, thanks to new telecommunications legislation that exempted individuals from capital gains tax. These and a series of lawsuits filed against the prime minister’s critics set off a popular anti-Thaksin campaign. His call for a snap election to assure his electoral support was met with a boycott by the opposition Democrats, and the election results were subsequently annulled.

In June, the Thai took a short break ‘from overheated politics to celebrate the 60th year of their king’s accession to the throne, the Golden Jubilee. Highly respected King Bhumibol is the world’s longest reigning monarch.

On 19 September 2006, the military, led by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, staged a bloodless coup which forced Thaksin into exile. Retired General Surayud Chulanont was appointed as interim prime minister. In the following year, the Constitutional Court ruled that as a result of electoral fraud, the TRT Party had to be dissolved, barring 111 of the party’s executive members from politics for five years. A new constitution was approved in a referendum by a rather thin margin. As promised, the interim government held general elections in December, returning the country to civilian rule. In January 2008, the Thaksin-influenced People’s Power Party won a majority and formed a government led by Samak Sundaravej.

In that year Thailand faced great pressure on various levels the ongoing insurgency in the Deep South, a territorial conflict with neighbouring Cambodia, rising oil prices and the extreme political polarisation at home.

After Unesco listed the ancient Khmer temple of Phra Viharn as an official World Heritage site, nationalist emotions ran high on both sides. Cambodia and Thailand moved troops into the disputed area, but returned to talks.

Ousted PM Thaksin returned to Thailand briefly, but then went back into exile (but he has since been constantly on the move) to avoid the trial, and later, the sentence handed down against him by the Thai court. His wife also faced charges in court.

Samak’s PPP led government was troubled by the extra parliamentary tactics of the opposition People’s Alliance for Democracy. Demonstrations were led by the former mayor of Bangkok, Chamlong Srimuang, and the newspaper owner, Sondhi Limthongkul. The movement represented a mixture of anti Thaksin, anti PPP and royalist sentiments. The protesters, wearing yellow and equipped with plastic hand clappers, were dubbed yellow shirters. They included a wide range of middle class groups and some of the upper class. The PAD were well organised and developed strategies on a daily basis to interrupt the work of the government and cabinet. They seized public spaces and government complexes, setting up camps for months in places such as the Government House. The quasin permanent gathering, supplied with food and drink and entertained with music and speeches, added to the capital’s traffic woes, although it eventually became something of a tourist attraction.

The supporters of Thaksin and the PPP government also organised their own movement, symbolised by red shirts and a formidable trademark of plastic foot shaped clappers. The red shirt protestors represented TRT and PPP supporters. They came mostly from the north and northeast, and included anti coup activists. Both yellow and red movements found support from politicians and academics in different camps. Some skirmishes in Bangkok and other provinces resulted in more than a dozen deaths. This was seen by some as evidence of the surfacing of a longstanding, suppressed polarisation between classes and between rural and urban sectors in Thailand.

The PAD occupation of Thailand’s main airports, Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang, in November 2008, was the boldest and riskiest move to force the resignation of Samak’s replacement, Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother in law. The occupation led to a week long closure of both major airports, causing enormous damage to the Thai economy, especially its tourism and export industries. Throughout the crisis, the military claimed to remain neutral, but when an Army Commander in Chief, General Anuphong Phaochinda, called publicly for new elections and a PAD withdrawal, many in the government called it a silent coup.

In the midst of this crisis, Prime Minister Somchai was forced to quit his office by a Constitutional Court ruling which dissolved the PPP because of vote buying and barred its leaders from politics for five years. After weeks of manoeuvring by the Democrat Party to persuade several minor parties to switch sides, Democrat Abhisit Vejjajiva was elected in a parliamentary vote, becoming Thailand’s 27th prime minister. Even as the pro-Thaksin camp remained hostile and active, Abhisit faced the daunting task of re establishing national harmony and restoring confidence in the Thai economy in the face of the global economic recession.