Call for Thai Vote Fails to Ease Crisis

Dec. 9, 2013 1:31 p.m. ETBANGKOK—Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s sudden decision to dissolve Parliament and call new elections has failed to resolve the spiraling political crisis playing out in the capital’s streets.
More than 150,000 people rallied on Monday to demand that Ms. Yingluck and her brother, self-exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, remove themselves from politics entirely, underscoring the starkly diverging views within Thailand, a country the U.S. has seen as a model for democratic growth in a region where China’s influence is quickly gaining.

Masses of people carried Thai national flags across Bangkok on Monday, stepping up a monthlong protest campaign to oppose the Prime Minister Shinawatra’s politically powerful family. Reuters

At the heart of the divide is the wealthy, populist Shinawatra political machine that arose out of Thailand’s economic boom over the past 30 years. Led by Mr. Thaksin, who ran the country until the army removed him in 2006, the Shinawatra clan has fundamentally challenged Thailand’s traditional military-aligned hierarchies and galvanized supporters of the old guard.

Yingluck Shinawatra announces the dissolution of Parliament Monday. Pool/Zuma Press

Exacerbating the political crisis are widespread concerns about the health of Thailand’s revered constitutional monarch, 86-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Some question whether his heir, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, would be able to exert the same stabilizing influence as his father has during previous stress points in Thailand’s history.
“There is a lot of what I call Thaksin-phobia among the people of Bangkok in particular,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University in Japan. “But it’s being magnified by the uncertainty about what a royal succession would bring. The anxiety levels have really been heightened.”

Key Players
Read more about some key Thai political figures.

Photos: Protests Escalate

European Pressphoto Agency
Timeline: Legacy of Turmoil
A decade and a half after Thaksin Shinawatra founded his ‘Thais Love Thais’ party, antagonism prevails.

Ms. Yingluck’s opponents, who have been on a monthlong campaign to remove her from office, saw her call for fresh elections as a political tactic that would ultimately return her to power thanks to her party’s strong support base in Thailand’s rural communities.
In Bangkok on Monday, masses of protesters streamed out of homes and offices carrying red-white-and-blue national flags and royal yellow banners at the set hour of 9:39 a.m.—the number nine being considered especially lucky in Thailand—and marched toward the prime minister’s headquarters among the gilded temples and shady canals of downtown Bangkok.
Many in the opposition accuse Ms. Yingluck of being her brother’s puppet, a charge amplified by her recent attempt to introduce amnesty legislation that would clear his corruption conviction and allow him to return home a free man from his base in Dubai.
“This isn’t over yet,” said one, 45-year-old Chadathon Viseskol. “She’s still prime minister, for now.” Another, Sontaya Worawong, 32, said Ms. Yingluck “should leave Thailand, too, just like her brother.”
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister, is demanding an end to election-based politics, at least for the time being.
He wants Ms. Yingluck to step aside to allow a royally appointed prime minister to take charge of the country and eradicate the Shinawatras’ influence, saying the family woos votes with expensive subsidies and tax rebates.
Mr. Suthep’s allies in the opposition Democrat Party said they have yet to decide whether to take part in the polls. All the party’s lawmakers in Parliament resigned en masse Sunday, stirring speculation the party would boycott a new election, driving down voter turnout and thereby forcing Thailand’s courts to void the result.
Ms. Yingluck’s supporters in her Pheu Thai, or For Thais, Party are confident of repeating their 2011 landslide election win and are eager for the vote to go ahead. They aim to build on the Shinawatras’ continuing appeal among the farmers and traders in Thailand’s bustling market towns and agricultural heartlands.
The broadly pro-Thaksin Red Shirts, a grass-roots movement that helped Ms. Yingluck get elected in 2011, said they would mobilize their supporters to make sure the election, provisionally scheduled for Feb. 2, goes ahead.

More than 150,000 antigovernment protesters took to the streets of Bangkok on Monday. Reuters

“We will not give up this country to Mr. Suthep,” one of the group’s leaders, Jatuporn Prompan, told a news conference.

Thai anti-government protesters on a bulldozer shouted slogans after breaking through barricades Monday to enter the compound of Government House in Bangkok. European Pressphoto Agency

Already, four people have been killed and dozens injured in clashes between pro- and antigovernment factions in recent weeks. There is widespread concern that the level of violence could escalate, as it did in 2010 when more than 90 people were killed, mostly by security forces attempting to quell pro-Thaksin protesters who occupied Bangkok for nine weeks.
For decades, power in Thailand has alternated between short-lived civilian governments and military-appointed administrations. Much of the moral authority centered on the armed forces and, especially, the American-born, Swiss-educated king.
But as Thailand’s economy boomed in the 1980s and 1990s, the wealth that previously had been concentrated in Bangkok began to ripple out to other parts of the country, raising incomes as manufacturing businesses and commercial farming techniques spread.
That created opportunities for a new breed of politician to emerge, the most successful of which was Ms. Yingluck’s older brother, Mr. Thaksin.
A former policeman and self-made telecommunications mogul, Mr. Thaksin became prime minister in 2001. He transformed Thai politics with his pro-poor policies and slick branding. Mr. Thaksin’s Thais Love Thais Party made it easier for farmers and small businesses in far-flung areas to get access to credit and health care, and provided them with a powerful political voice.
In 2005, Mr. Thaksin was re-elected in a landslide. It was the first time that a Thai civilian leader had been returned to office.
It was also the beginning of the end of his time in power.
Critics said that Mr. Thaksin took too many shortcuts, sometimes governing by executive decree instead of passing laws through Parliament. Human-rights activists complained about large losses of life in a crackdown on the country’s drug trade.
Thailand’s army, alarmed that Mr. Thaksin’s growing influence was beginning to eclipse that of Thailand’s establishment, removed him in a bloodless coup
This friction between the voters who elect Thailand’s populist governments and the protesters who have repeatedly chased them from office with military or judicial help was again clear on the streets of Bangkok on Monday.
“We have overthrown prime ministers before, and we are excited to see Ms. Yingluck be the next,” said Sakchai Harirakdamrong as he waved a six-foot-tall flag from a pedestrian bridge.
The U.S. State Department said that it hopes the elections will help resolve Thailand’s problems and urged the opposition to participate.
“We encourage all involved to resolve political tensions peacefully and democratically in a way that reflects the will of the Thai people,” it said.
—Shibani Mahtani contributed to this article.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com

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