Red Shirts a Wild Card in Thai Political Drama

Jan. 30, 2014 7:38 p.m. ET

Uncertainty over how the Red Shirts would respond to the collapse of the Thai government is stirring fears that the country’s broad stability could be undermined. Above, Red Shirt supporters gather in Bangkok. Agence France Presse/Getty Images

ROI ET, Thailand—While Thailand braces for contentious elections that could spark more violence in the capital, broader ideological battles are playing out here in the country’s hinterlands.
A few days ago, a mysterious banner appeared on an overpass in Phayao in northern Thailand, warning that the north of the country could break away from Bangkok and the south. “There is no justice. I want to split the country,” it read, apparently referring to how protesters in Bangkok are trying to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government, which draws much of its support from vote-rich regions in north and northeast Thailand.
Nobody seems to know who placed the banner. Local officials say it might have been members of the so-called Red Shirts, a pro-government network that has taken root across rural Thailand in recent years.
“We don’t know who did it either,” says Prapai Houdsri, a Red Shirt leader with thick glasses and a gap-toothed smile in Roi Et, a market town in northeast Thailand. “But it does show the level of frustration people here are feeling with what’s happening in Bangkok.”
In the capital, protesters have been taking to the streets to block Sunday’s vote and limit the power of populist, elected politicians. The movement, driven by middle-class voters, doesn’t sit well with the Red Shirts, who have their roots in the country’s poorer regions.
Victory for the protesters would be the collapse of Ms. Yingluck’s government and the installment of an unelected council to rid Thai politics of what they see as corruption.
How the Red Shirts would respond to such an outcome is stirring fears that Thailand, once one of Southeast Asia’s most stable countries, could edge closer to a potentially bloody reckoning.
Already 10 people have died in political violence since the protesters’ campaign was launched in November. Across the northeast of Thailand, a region with a distinct dialect and culture, activists are discussing what to do. Secession is seen as an extreme suggestion. “It’s something one hears a lot, although it’s unclear how far they would go,” says David Streckfuss, an academic who is based in Khon Kaen, one of the region’s largest towns.
More likely, Red Shirts would mobilize its own demonstrators to defend Ms. Yingluck, says Red Shirt leader Nattawut Saikeua, who is also a deputy minister at the Ministry of Commerce. “We’ll invite others to join us, too,” he says.
Whatever the group does could prove pivotal. Critics accuse Red Shirts of blindly following the commands of Ms. Yingluck’s powerful older brother, billionaire businessman Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in a military coup in 2006 and now lives overseas to evade a corruption conviction he says is politically motivated.
Indeed, the homes and offices of Red Shirt supporters in Roi Et, a hotbed of support for Mr. Thaksin, are liberally decorated with large portraits of the self-exiled leader. They also celebrate Mr. Thaksin’s birthday every year, on July 26. Last year, Roi Et’s Red Shirts produced a large cake with 64 candles and burned cardboard coffins symbolizing some of Mr. Thaksin’s enemies.
In 2010, the group, formally known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, rallied tens of thousands of supporters to converge in Bangkok for nearly two months to press for new elections. Some 90 people were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces, the majority of them Red Shirts.
Some members say the Red Shirts’ ambitions have evolved beyond reverence for Mr. Thaksin and that they are trying to influence Thailand’s future for decades to come.
“I don’t love Mr. Thaksin—I love his policies, the cheap health care, the small-business loans,” says Thongpan Thalangtham, 69 years old, a retired army colonel who serves as an adviser to the Roi Et group. “These are policies that really helped ordinary people like us. And if the other parties think of some policies that are even better, then I’ll vote for them.”
Ms. Yingluck’s government is at risk of collapsing after protesters blocked the registration of candidates in some parts of Thailand, making it impossible for her to quickly form a new government after Sunday’s vote, The Red Shirts’ strength could soon be tested. some security and risk analysts say. New York-based consultancy Eurasia Group expects the most likely outcome is for Thailand’s courts to nullify the vote.
Red Shirt leaders on the ground in Roi Et and elsewhere in the country say they are ready to resist any kind of military coup or judicial intervention with their own protests or by extending their network of so-called Red Villages, where residents have banded together to support Ms. Yingluck’s Pheu Thai Party.
But some Red Shirts in other parts of the country quietly discuss stockpiling or securing weapons, saying that a worsening conflict with antigovernment protesters or the armed forces is brewing. Even in Roi Et, which is largely peaceful, the sense of foreboding is growing. During a recent visit, Mr. Prapai quickly scribbled out a poem circulated in Red Shirt circles:
The country will catch fire,
Thais will kill each other.
Spread of blood and tears,
Chao Phraya and Mekong rivers turn red.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com

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