Thai premier flies from one crisis to another (News Feature)

Mar 31, 2009, 9:24 GMT

   Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday left behind a looming political crisis in Bangkok to go help the Group of 20 (G20) leaders fight the global economic crisis.

   Abhisit, 43, was personally invited by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to attend Thursday's summit in London even through Thailand is not a member of the illustrious group of the world's 19 largest economies and the European Union.

   Thailand's Oxford-educated premier is in London in his capacity as chairman of the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations.

   The G20 leaders could be forgiven if they prove more interested in Abhisit's views on Thai politics than his suggestions for cleaning up the global financial mess.  

   Thailand has arguably been undergoing unprecendented political instability since a military coup overthrew populist prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006. 

Thaksin, a billionaire former telecommunications tycoon who was prime minister beginning in 2001, has refused to fade from the political scene.

   Although living in self-imposed exile and avoiding a two-year jail sentence in Thailand for a conviction on abuse-of-power charges, Thaksin is very much in the limelight again this week.   

   On Thursday, he galvanized thousands of his supporters, called Red Shirts after their wardrobe, to surround Government House, the seat of the administration, to demand Abhisit resign, dissolve parliament and call for a new election.

   The scene is deja vu with different colours for Bangkokians. Last year, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), or Yellow Shirts, occupied Government House for four months in its bid to topple a government led by the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP).

   On December 2, after the PAD seized and shut down Bangkok's two airports for a week, the PPP was dissolved by the Constitution Court for committing election fraud in polls a year earlier.

   The dissolution of the PPP - which automatically ended the premiership of Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law - paved the way for Abhisit, leader of the former opposition Democrat party, to become prime minister two weeks later.

   'This government was installed by a silent coup,' Thaksin said Monday night in a phone-in address to his supporters. 'It is not a democratic government. The coup was staged by the Constitution Court, the military and the Privy Council president.'

   On Friday, Thaksin named Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda as the chief architect of the 2006 coup that overthrew him. He also named Privy Councillor Surayud Chulanont, who was prime minister after the bloodless putsch, as a co-conspirator in the coup.

   The accusations were immediately denied by both members of the council that advises King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

   Thaksin's audacity in attacking Prem personally and calling for his resignation from the Privy Council was a direct challenge to Thailand's political establishment.

   Since Friday, Prem has been ridiculed and criticized at Red Shirt rallies on a nightly basis. As a close adviser to Thailand's revered king, the attacks on Prem were likely to provoke a response.

   'They are in provocation mode,' said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. 'The Reds and Thaksin have very little to lose.'

   Thaksin, in fact, has about 2 billion dollars to lose.

   His family's local bank deposits have been frozen since the coup, and Thai courts are expected to soon decide on whether the fortune was illicitly gained.

   Given the political circumstances wherein Thaksin has been able to stir up plenty of trouble without his Thai-based assets, it was unlikely that the courts would gladly hand the money back to the Shinawatras.

   For Thaksin, the more political chaos, the better his chances of a return to power.     

   'If a shooting breaks out - soldiers shoot at people or a coup takes place - I will return and lead more protestors to Bangkok,' he vowed in Monday's phone-in address.

   The government's best tactic is to do nothing.

   After Abhisit's departure for London Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban announced that the cabinet would not convene this week, which makes the Red Shirt blockade of Government House rather pointless.

   Democrat sources said they expected the protestors to disperse for Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year, from April 11 to 15.

   They are likely to return after the holidays when the game of brinksmanship would resume.

   'The Red Shirts can set the condition for a confrontation, but where will the knock-out punch come from?' Thitinan said. 'Only if there is a reaction and mishandling from the other side.'